Black Lace Stockings
by Deranged Black Kitten
Summary: It didn't really matter to her that almost everyone saw her as a boy, because as Robin the 'Boy Wonder,' she was able to help so many people and help Batman fight the good fight. Written for YJ anon meme, features fem!Robin
1. Chapter 1

_Hello all! Finally decided to post this here, after holding off for a week or so (stupid nerves!). This fic was written for the Young Justice anonymous fic meme (I suppose this is me 'de-anoning' myself). The prompt was that "Robin is actually a girl, but dresses and acts like a boy because of what happens to little girls in Gotham." Batman and Alfred of course know this, but the rest of the Young Justice team don't. _

_Yeesh, Young Justice is becoming my new cartoon obsession. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, don't sue me. _

* * *

**Chapter One**

Her fuzzy Tigger slippers shuffled along the stone ground as her wide blue eyes peered all around her at the cave walls. She was a little worried that she might get in trouble for going inside Mr. Wayne's clock, but when she had stumbled along the passageway, well, it was just too much like Narnia for her to pass up. There wasn't a lot of light to see things by, but that just added to the adventure.

She nibbled on the cookie Mr. Alfred had given her earlier, but froze when she heard a very quiet noise from the left of her. Turning towards the noise, her blue eyes grew even wider as a living shadow stepped free from all the rest, towering over her like some kind of demon in black.

Of course she was scared, but she remembered back to how scary some of the people working at the circus had seemed before she had gotten to know them and found out that they were actually nice, and she also remembered Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street and how he really wasn't all that bad either, just kinda grumpy.

And since she couldn't get her legs to move to run away, she did the next best thing.

Holding up her half-eaten cookie, she asked, "Want some of my cookie?"

After all, who didn't like cookies?

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* * *

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She was twelve when she told Wally her first name. It had been a little over a year ago when she and Batman had teamed up with Flash and Kid Flash for one particular assignment, that having been her first meeting with the speedster team. Since then, she'd had a couple other missions alongside the young hero, and had even hung out with him a couple times during some down-time. It hadn't taken very long at all before Wally told her his name. She didn't reciprocate the gesture though.

"Aw, come on, dude," Wally whined. "You already know my name. You gotta give me _something_."

She sighed, adjusting her sunglasses before leaning back in her chair. They were seated at the food court of one of Gotham's many malls, dining on greasy fast food that she was sure Alfred wouldn't approve of.

"No way, man," she said, lips pulled down into a frown. This wouldn't be the first time they'd had this discussion. "The Boss has strict rules about that sort of thing."

She avoided saying 'Batman' in such a public place.

"Well, he doesn't need to know then, now does he?" Wally said, yet as he spoke, he glanced around as if he expected Batman to emerge from one of the nearby potted plants or something, which kind of made her feel a little paranoid of that possibility too.

At the very least, Bats could have someone watching them. In fact, now that she thought about it, that was a very likely possibility. She subtly glanced around them, but couldn't pick up any signs of someone spying on them.

"And anyway," Wally said, continuing. "We're friends, aren't we? Can't you share this one thing with your bud?"

Pulling the friend card. That was a low blow.

She cast her gaze skyward, as if asking for patience. She shouldn't. She really shouldn't.

"Alright," she said. She paused too look around them once more, but could still see no sign of Bruce or even Alfred. Feeling a little more confident, a little more determined, she pushed forward, "Just don't laugh."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Wally said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He leaned forward eagerly as she opened her mouth again.

"Richard," she finally said. "My name is Richard."

And it really was Richard. Richard Anne Grayson. 'Richard' because her parents had been free-spirited people and thought it to be a creative name for a girl. When she remembered the sound of their voices saying her name with the utmost fondness – Richard, Ricki, even Dixie – she could never hate the name they had given her.

Wally stared at her for a brief moment before a snort of laugher escaped him. Giving the boy her own version of the Bat Glare – an effect which was kind of ruined by her wearing sunglasses – she grabbed a handful of French fries and chucked them at his head.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Wally said in between chuckles. "But dude, your name is _Dick."_

Wally snickered again and she rolled her eyes.

_'Tch, boys.' _

And she was the _younger one_ between the two of them.

For the rest of the day away from their mentors, Wally continued to tease her about her name, or rather, her nickname, and it wasn't even one she'd ever gone by for obvious reasons. One head-lock later on though, and she'd managed to convince him to call her Ricki instead, though in Wally's mind, it was _Ricky _with a 'y'.

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* * *

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Ricki had never really been into a lot of 'girly stuff' as a child. She never tried on her mother's makeup, and even when she got her face painted up at the face-painting station at the circus, it had never been with flowers or butterflies, but rather the scales of a dragon, or a superhero's mask. Though she sometimes wore dresses to appease her mom, she'd much rather be wearing shorts or pants and a t-shirt.

She also kept her hair cut short because she liked it that way and it made the whole unpleasant bath experience a whole lot quicker. There had been plenty of times when people who visited the circus mistook her for a boy, but she'd never really had any problems with that because neither gender held any clear definition in her mind.

What did it matter to her if people thought she was a boy or if people thought she was a girl? After all, she grew up in a circus where there were guys who dressed in drag and a woman with a long, thick beard.

And then later on, moving in with Bruce when she had no family left to go to, that opinion of gender sorta stayed with her, and she'd been far too upset over her parents death to even care in the slightest when the press mistook her for a boy and had it printed in all of the newspapers before Bruce could correct them about the fact that he had '_adopted a son as an heir.'_

A simple mistake became a temporary lie to protect her from whoever was responsible for her parents death, and then it turned into a permanent lie to protect her when the whole Robin thing came about – it was a compromise between her and Bruce because she was stubborn and insistent and determined to help Batman fight the good fight. She did a lot of good and helped Bruce and a lot of other people as Robin the _Boy_ Wonder, so it didn't really matter to her that so many people saw her as a boy.

As she grew older though... Well, all that she was saying was that some of those dresses didn't look all that bad...

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* * *

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She'd been ecstatic to be a part of the Justice League's new group of young heroes, especially since she hadn't been sure if Bruce would even let her join in the first place. In his own gruff way that people usually couldn't detect, Bruce could be pretty protective of her, and it didn't take a genius to see that the man wasn't too fond of the idea of her being teamed up with three older boys. It wasn't like she'd never worked with Wally or Kaldur in the past, but all of those times, she'd been under Batman or one of the older League member's supervision.

Plus, Superboy was a complete unknown.

Batman made it work though, there was no surprise there, and with M'gann added to their group, Ricki would no long be the only girl among a bunch of boys, even though none of her teammates were aware of this.

Over a month in and everything had been going great, but when that second month rolled around, things took a sudden downward turn when she woke up one morning and discovered that she had taken her first real step into the so-called _joys_ of womanhood in the form of a monthly visitor who she, quite frankly, didn't want visiting. It wasn't like she didn't know it was going to happen, but knowing that it's eventually going to happen didn't make the entire experience any less unpleasant once it actually _did_ happen.

And so here she was now, sitting on a park bench in the town closest to Mount Justice, the motorbike she had ridden into town parked just a couple feet away from her. It had been easy enough sneaking out of Base without any of her teammates noticing, and it had been even easier hacking into the computers of the local women's clinic and setting up an appointment for herself. It had kind of been like a normal undercover mission, one that she could focus her mind on. Now that her doctor's appointment was all said and done though...

There was an uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of her stomach, and she wasn't talking about cramps. She fidgeted on the bench, reaching up to lightly prod at the small bruise that was already forming on her upper arm at the injection point.

She remembered the brief look the nurse had given her, she remembered the whisper she had caught being exchanged between two receptionists.

"_-isn't she a little young-"_

The uncomfortable feeling grew, turning into a feeling of wrongness. She was thirteen and she had just started her period for the first time. She was _only_ thirteen and she had just gotten her first birth control shot.

Ricki suddenly felt angry remembering some of the reactions she had gotten out of some of the people at the doctor's office; those disapproving looks because they thought she was getting the shot so that she could have sex. That wasn't why she had gotten the shot at all though. She'd gotten the shot to stay safe because she frequently deals with dangerous criminals and who knows what might happen, and she had also gotten the shot because along with preventing her from getting pregnant, the chemicals in the shot would completely stop her from getting her period again.

One of the joys that the new and improved types of birth control offered in this day and age, along with not having all sorts of harmful side effects from staying on it for a long time. It wasn't like this was a sudden decision of hers. She'd done the research and she'd had this plan in mind for a while now. After all, mother-nature's visitor of the month was not something Robin should have to worry about, neither was pregnancy.

Despite being able to think logically and reasonably about all of this though, she still couldn't completely make that feeling of wrongness go away, nor could she help but feel sad over the fact that she was thirteen years old and she had already seen enough horrors in Gotham to know that she wanted to be protected against an unwanted pregnancy.

She could feel the faint prickle of the beginning of tears in her eyes and she blinked rapidly to keep them away.

'_Damn hormones.'_

And then the very last thing she expected at this point happened.

A rather fancy looking car pulled up in front of her and Bruce stepped out of the driver's side door.

"Um... hi," she said rather lamely as she stared up at the man who stood before her with a curious look on his face. "What are you doing here?"

If he had needed her back at Mount Justice for League business, he would have contacted her as Batman.

"A doctor's appointment at a women's clinic for one _Riley Pennyworth_ came up on my computers," Bruce said, his thumbs hooked into his pants pockets.

Riley Pennyworth. Her alias as Alfred's niece for whenever she actually needed to do something as a girl. Figures that Mr. Paranoia would have that name tracked by his computers.

"You could have just called," she said. "You didn't have to drive all the way out here."

"Maybe I wanted to see for myself that you're alright," he said. "And maybe I figured you could use someone to talk to."

She had wanted to call up Bruce, had been filled with an inexplicable need to go running back home, but she was Robin for crying-out-loud. She'd dealt with much worse things than _this. _So she hadn't called – she wasn't a wuss – and she had instead slipped out of the Base and had dealt with it on her own.

"It wasn't like I was dying or anything," she eventually grumbled. "I just..."

It wasn't exactly something she wanted to talk to Bruce about, which was another reason she hadn't called. What teenage girl _did_ want to talk to her father-figure about this sort of thing? She was sure Bruce didn't really want to talk about it either. She still remembered how he had dealt with giving her 'the talk' about both sex and puberty, how a stack of pamphlets on the subject had mysteriously appeared on her bed, and then how later on a female doctor had stopped by to further discuss the matter with Riley Pennyworth and answer any questions she had.

Following that had been a long, awkward week of not really looking each other in the eye, and she had a feeling that right now wouldn't be any less unpleasant.

"I just," she continued. "I just started my... female... monthly _thing_ for the first time... And I also got my first birth control shot, but I'd already told you before that I'd be doing that once this happened, so..."

She expected an awkward silence, she expected the same sort of evasive reaction Bruce had had when it came to her getting the 'sex talk' for the first time, but it would seem that that wasn't the case this time. Rather than clam-up, Bruce gave her a gentle smile and asked, "Do you want to want to go out for some ice cream?"

Okay, it was a little bit evasive, but it wasn't like she was dying to talk about the subject with him either and ice cream sounded pretty good at the moment, or it would if she wasn't having a bit of an underwear crisis.

"Actually," she began hesitantly, all the while swearing in her mind not to blush. "I need to go to a store and pick up some... feminine products."

"Oh."

Yeah, _there_ was the awkwardness she was expecting.

Leaving the motorbike where she parked it with the simple explanation that he'd call someone to pick it up for them, Bruce drove her to the nearest pharmacy that would likely be carrying what she needed. Parked in front of the pharmacy – feeling ridiculous because, again, she was Robin and this was nothing compared to what she'd dealt with in the past – Ricki stared up at Bruce with wide, blue doe-eyes and asked in a quiet voice just one thing:

"Will you go inside with me?"

Hell knew that _neither _of them wanted to go venturing down the feminine products aisle.

Bruce couldn't resist the 'doe-eyes' though.

"Sure."

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* * *

_End of chapter one. So that's all I have for now. There's more to come in the future though. _

_Review please and let me know what you think. :)  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello all! First off, thank you everyone for your awesome reviews! You guys are all so super awesome and you're comments really keep a girl typing! ;) This is probably the quickest I've ever updated anything ever, and sadly it is not a common habit of mine. In fact, I won't be able to do any writing for the next two weeks because of having to get rid of everything in my apartment and then a 3000 mile road trip immediately following that.  
_

_Anyway, this first scene jumps back into the past, and after that we move forward into the present of the story. I've got lots planned for this story, and I hope you all stick around and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice. Don't sue me. _

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**Chapter Two**

Even dressed as a boy, Bruce was always very much aware that Ricki was really a little girl. Every time she went out on patrol with him as Robin, every time they dealt with the scum of Gotham City, even when she went off to school each day – _alone, _without him there to protect her – he couldn't help but feel like an overprotective papa bear ready to maul whatever or whoever threatened her. He had no idea if this was _because_ she was a little girl or if this was because she was his ward, his kid, and since he didn't also have a little boy running around the house, he also had no idea if his overprotective feelings would be any different or not.

Despite being very aware that Ricki was a little girl though, it was sometimes easy to forget exactly what that entailed – he'd never had a daughter before Ricki, or a kid at all for that matter, so he was completely new to all of this – and he most definitely didn't think he'd have to be dealing with _anything_ like this when she was only ten years old.

The ink scribbles on the notebook paper stared up at him with all the horrors of a crime scene photo – little red hearts floating around the name '_Speedy'_ on lined paper.

When he had opened up her spiral notebook to check over her fifth grade homework, something he always did, he never expected to find _this_ monstrosity. Looking back on it now though to their recent team-up with the archer team – Ricki's first team-up with anyone outside of Gotham, now that Bruce thought about it – he realized that Ricki had been acting a little odd around Green Arrow's sidekick.

"It is merely a little crush, Master Bruce. Puppy love, if you will," Alfred assured him later on. "Completely normal for little girls her age."

"She's _ten, _Alfred, and he's five years older than her," he said, a bit of the Bat's growl seeping through in his voice.

"Getting crushes on older boys is also very normal for a girl her age," Alfred said. "It's all completely innocent, I promise you. The young Mr. Harper likely isn't even aware of the crush."

"Well, I don't like it," Bruce grumbled.

And Speedy noticing the crush wasn't something Bruce had even considered. The possibility that the boy might suspect something about Robin made him not like the situation even more than before.

"Just try not to draw attention to the crush and, as always, keep the lines of communication open. That's the best thing you can do at this point," Alfred advised, "She'll grow out of it before you know it."

And Alfred was right. Once age eleven rolled around, all signs of Ricki's crush on Roy Harper disappeared completely. It was a good thing too, for everyone's sake, because otherwise Bruce would have had to _deal_ with the young archer, and he was pretty sure Green Arrow wouldn't appreciate having to break-in a new sidekick.

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* * *

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It was quite possibly the most awkwardly unpleasant ending to a mission Robin had ever had. Of all the things that could have happened, she now found herself mostly naked and stuck on some stupid island in the middle of freakin' nowhere along with the three guys of her group who were _also_ mostly naked.

The main cause behind these rather... _uncomfortable_ circumstances had been a faulty teleportation machine, the same kind that the League used, except some half-wit didn't program it right or something else of the sort because not only did it send them to some random tiny island that was void of all human contact, it also shredded the hell out of their uniforms – even shredded through the technology in her glove that she could have used to contact the League with.

Robin supposed that she should feel lucky that the glitchy machine hadn't filleted the skin off her body, but she was having a little trouble looking past the fact that her uniform, her underwear even – which were of course boxers because she tried to plan ahead for everything and being caught in girl's panties would be a little hard to explain– were completely in tatters to the point where she might as well have not been wearing anything at all. Even the ace bandages she used to wrap around her chest were torn up, though they did fair better than everything else.

So here she was, more-or-less naked in some unknown location along with her three _male_ teammates – they'd been separated from M'gann, who hadn't been standing close enough to the teleportation machine when they were caught in its blast – teammates who _also_ thought that she was a guy too.

Her one saving grace had been the fact that they hadn't all landed in the same spot on the island, so that gave her some time to come up with some sort of plan to hide her secret. Not too much time though because soon after she gained her bearings about the situation, she could hear Wally zipping around in the distance, calling out to her and to the rest of her teammates.

After frantically scrabbling through useless strips of fabric that littered the ground around her, she managed to find her cape – it was soaking wet from earlier on in the mission, but thankfully mostly intact – and soon after dove into the nearest bush at the sound of quickly approaching footsteps.

"Rob?" Wally called out, very nearly passing the bush by before she stuck one arm out of the mass of leaves and waved at him to gain his attention.

"Right here, KF," she called back.

As Wally stopped and squinted at her hiding place, Robin was suddenly very glad that it was nighttime and that it was extra dark because of the new moon – not only because it helped hide her current state of undress, but because it also hid Wally. From his silhouette, she could make out the tattered remains of the speedster's uniform, and... well... there wasn't a lot of it there.

'_Not looking, totally not looking!'_

Clearing her throat, eyes adverted somewhere off to the left of Kid Flash – _who was still squinting in __her direction, damnit_ – she chucked her cape out of the bush at him with enough force for it to hit him in the face with a wet slap.

"Do me a favor, super-speed that dry, will ya?" Robin said, staying crouched down in the leafy shrubbery and well out of sight.

Wally pulled the cape away from his face, looking back and forth between the bush and the wet fabric bunched up in his hand. Finally, he said, "Never took you for being the 'super modest' type, Rob."

"Would you just dry my stupid cape and throw it back to me?" she snapped.

Mouth closing shut, and likely sending a weird look in her direction, Wally eventually shrugged before disappearing in a blur and a gust of wind. He was back a moment later, probably after having run a couple of laps around the island, and tossed the now-dry cape back to the bush she hid in without any further prompting needed on her part.

One hand darting out from the leaves, she pulled the cape free from the branches it had landed on and was quick to drape it over her bare shoulders, pulling it closed around her body. Only when she was absolutely sure that it was covering everything that needed to be covered did she leave her hiding place.

Her legs were bare, she was missing one shoe, she was almost just as bare beneath the cape which only came down to her mid-thigh, and the fact that Wally just _stared_ at her when she first stepped out from the bush made her all too aware of these things.

"What?" she asked, her grip on the cape tightening.

Wally blinked.

"Nothing," he said simply, his tone light, carefree. He turned away from her. "Let's go find the others."

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* * *

.

Standing on the beach, her cape still closed tight around her, she kept her gaze focused on the sand that sifted between her toes on her one bare foot, and not on the 'wardrobe malfunction' that her three teammates were currently suffering from. She was once again thankful for the darkness of the night and the fact that at least they weren't _completely _naked because that would have been more than awkward, not that it wasn't already awkward.

And damn her eyes for giving each boy a brief glance-over because she honestly could have gone without knowing what kind of underwear they all wore – torn underwear at that, like something out of a dirty magazine – she was sure that she was blushing.

On a plus side, they all thought that she was, as Wally put it, 'super modest,' or at least self-conscious, so rather than bring attention to her need to hide beneath her cape, they discussed their next course of action. In the end, it was decided that Kaldur would go into the ocean to find out their location, and have a message sent out if need be, leaving her, Wally and Superboy waiting around on the beach.

She paced back and forth in the sand, keeping her blood pumping and attempting to warm herself up, while not too far away from her, Wally was trying to use super-speed and friction on some sticks to get a small fire going. The island they were on wasn't exactly a tropical one by any means.

"You keep doing that," Superboy remarked, and it took her a second to realize that he was talking to her.

"What?" she asked, confused, glancing down at herself, but not seeing anything out of the ordinary that he could be talking about. Well, aside from the pacing.

Wally spared her a quick look before turning his attention back to the small pile of branches he had gathered together, saying, "You're shivering." Superboy nodded in confirmation. "You cold, dude?"

"I'm feeling a slight breeze," she said with a deadpan expression. She paused in her pacing to shift from foot to foot, wishing that she didn't have to worry about holding her cape closed and could instead use her hands to rub some warmth back into her arms. Her lips pulled down into a frown as she looked at the two boys in front of her – except, not really _at _them so much as looking off to the side of them. "Aren't you guys cold?"

Superboy had the whole impervious thing going on, so his simple answer of 'no' wasn't surprising, but with Kid Flash, she wasn't so sure.

"Oh, well, you know," Wally said, looking a bit sheepish, "I can just do this." and at the word 'this,' Wally vibrated in place, a surefire way to warm one's self up, she would bet. The funny thing was that when he did that, that was when the branches he held finally decided to ignite.

Letting out a crow of triumph, Wally spread the fire to the rest of the wood pile and Robin shuffled over to the fire to carefully sit down in the sand in front of it, her legs folded up underneath her with both of her hands remaining fisted up in her cape to keep it closed. Letting out a quiet breath, she took a moment to close her eyes and revel in the warmth the fire gave off. It didn't make her shivering completely go away and it only really warmed the very front of her body, but she was thankful for it none-the-less.

While her eyes were closed, Wally and Superboy must have had some kind of silent conversation because the two suddenly sat down on either side of her, both leaning against her, and Wally even went so far as to sling an arm over her shoulders. She had a brief moment where her heart traded places with her stomach, and had to school her face so that she didn't have a deer-in-headlights look because they were all supposed to be just a bunch of guys, so this really shouldn't be such a big deal to her.

"Sharing body heat is a good way to keep warm," Superboy needlessly explained.

She cracked a half-hearted smile, "Yeah, I got that."

She had to admit, she did feel a lot warmer, but she couldn't completely relax because the situation was _whelming_ in the most uncomfortably awkward way and what if Wally's arm slipped lower, down her back, and he felt the ace bandages and _didn't _think it was just part of her uniform?

Kaldur, M'gann (who had quite the blush on her face) and her bioship couldn't have come sooner (because apparently they hadn't been transported too far away from their original location and Kaldur was able to meet up with the martian half-way. Robin didn't care so much about the details, she was just happy to be on the ship and heading back to Base).

She thought that'd be the end of her night, that they'd get back to Base where she could change into a new uniform or even just put some civvy clothes on, and that the most embarrassing thing she'd have to deal with that night would be Wally and Superboy half-cuddling up to her, but then they stepped off the ship and not only were Red Tornado and Black Canary waiting for them in the docking bay, but Batman was there too.

While Black Canary gave them a curious look and a raised eyebrow at their state of undress, it was the slight narrowing of Batman's eyes through his cowl that had Robin blurting out, "We got caught up in a malfunctioning teleporter! ...We're all okay though."

Batman gave her this look, like he wanted to shield her with his cape, before his gaze subtly shifted from her to the three boys standing around her and it made her want to say, '_Stop with the angry-Bat-dad looks, nothing happened! Yeesh, have some faith in my teammates, and in me for that matter.'_

"All of you get dressed," Batman finally said in his usual rumbling tone. "Be back here in ten minutes to give a brief mission report."

Wally disappeared in an instant, likely sensing the tension in the room, and Robin was quick to make her retreat as well, not exactly able to run while trying to hold her cape closed, but she was definitely speed-walking out of there. She mentally cursed the fact that this disaster of a mission had landed on one of the days she was due to go back to Gotham with Bruce. She _so_ was not looking forward to the drive back home.

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* * *

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When Artemis first joined the team, Robin honestly hadn't know how the hell she felt, so she had squashed down _any_ feelings she may have had at all, acted courteous to the girl, and put all of her focus into the mission they had immediately following the blonde's introduction to the team.

On the one hand, she supposed that it was nice to have another girl on the team, even if she couldn't show that this meant anything to her since Robin was just one of the guys. However, Artemis wasn't just another teen with superpowers. She was completely normal, completely without powers, and a girl, just like Robin, except Artemis didn't have to hide the fact that she was a girl.

It was kind of a punch in the gut, because this girl was so very much like her and could do it all – the crime-fighting, _everything – _without having to hide who she was. Robin felt like she should be jealous, and for the briefest moment, she was, but then she remembered just how different Gotham was from Star City; everything was different in Gotham City as compared to most places. Then there was the fact that Robin had been _nine_ when she started crime-fighting, not in her early teens like her teammates had been.

Remembering all of these things made any jealousy she may have had disappear, and if anything, she could respect that Artemis was a non-superpowered hero and could maintain her femininity. Plus, she was finding that Artemis was a pretty okay girl, and now M'gann had someone to do 'girl things' with.

And for some reason, the fact that Robin didn't have to listen to Wally blather on about how awesome or attractive Artemis was in the same way the red-head talked about M'gann _also_ seemed to help.

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* * *

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Robin was always very careful about her secret, especially when around her teammates and friends because out of all the people out there who thought she was a boy, they were the ones most likely to pry into her personal life, even if only to satisfy an innocent curiosity.

It ranged from little things such as being sure not to cross her legs in what might be considered a 'girly fashion' when she was sitting, or trying not to look like she was admiring just how hot some of the actors were in the various TV shows or movies they sometimes watched, and then there were the not-so-little things such as resisting the urge she occasionally got to look up dresses online, because the last thing she needed was one of her teammates looking over her shoulder and asking questions.

There was one thing she didn't take into consideration though when it came to her big secret_..._

_Static cling. _

And she swears to all that is holy that if her secret gets exposed because of a pair of panties getting stuck to a pile of clothes and haphazardly shoved into a bag that she brought to Mount Justice, Batman won't even need to bother lecturing her because if the embarrassment doesn't do her in, the building she'll gladly throw herself off of will.

To make matters worse, the discovery that she had brought these panties to Mount Justice was not made by herself, but by Wally, the one person in her team who would most definitely _not_ let her brush the whole thing off with some half-assed excuse.

"_Dude, _have you been holding out on me?" Wally asked, the pair of panties held in both hands and a wide grin on his face.

The unfortunate thing about it was that there was _no_ mistaking the fact that the underwear belonged to a girl. They were a black stretchy spandex/polyester material with a red lace bow on the front, red trim running along the waistband, and a sheer black material with more red trim was sewn into short ruffles running along the upper half of each leg opening (_so she wanted something girly and kind of sexy to wear, even if it was something no one else would see – so sue her_).

It was exactly the type of clothing that would give Bruce a brain aneurysm if he ever found out about her owning such a thing, even though she was fifteen now and honestly didn't see what the big deal was. If she could risk her life on a regular basis, she should be allowed to own a couple pairs of 'sexy' bras and underwear.

"Sooo, who's the girl?" Wally asked, giving her a sly look.

"It's... no one," she said, trying to keep the wide-eyed _oh-god-this-isn't-happening_ look off her face, and was quick to add, "No one you know. Just a girl from school."

"Oh, yeah? Didn't know you were such a _player_, Rob," Wally said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Nothing happened," she nearly exclaimed, but was quick to reel her panic in. "She was just... flirting."

'_Do girls even do that, flirt by giving a guy her underwear, or is that just on TV or in the movies? Do girls _my age_ even do that?'_ she wondered, and couldn't help but mentally berate herself, '_You act like a guy so much, you hardly even know how to be a girl!'_

"Flirting?" Wally questioned, clearly expecting more to the story.

"Yeah, flirting," she said, adopting a more suave demeanor, making a random gesture in the air with one hand. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked up at the ceiling and said, "But I'm sure you know how that is."

A sideways glance out of the corner of her eye at the red-head tells her that Wally actually does _not _know how that is, at least not to the extent that he seemed to think that she was at, but she pretended not to notice this fact.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Wally said, his tone as casual and relaxed as hers, probably just as fake too. The wide grin and accompanying mirth returned though, more natural, as he asked, "So do I get to meet this sexy panty girl?"

The 'sexy panty girl' being _her._ It took all of Batman's training not to blush at that moment.

"Uhhh, no," she said slowly. "Because, see, nothing really came from it. It was just some flirting, that's all."

"Really?" Wally said with a deadpan, unconvinced look. "A girl gives you her panties and nothing happened?"

"Yup... that's what I said."

"I think you're full of shit, dude," Wally said bluntly.

He was completely right of course, but she couldn't let him know that.

"Don't hate the player, KF, hate the game," she said, putting everything that she could into her tone and body language to make it seem like there was some truth to her little story.

Wally looked down at the panties and then back up at her. Shaking his head, he tossed the panties over to her and said, "Whatever, Rob, I bet you said something weird and scared her off."

"Think what you want," she said airily, all the while thinking herself, '_As long as those thoughts aren't about _me_ being the 'sexy panty girl,' he can make whatever assumptions he wants.'_

Wally rolled his eyes as he left her room and she was quick to shove her girly underwear back into the bag she'd be taking back to Gotham with her, just happy at this point that she had her underwear back in her possession.

They were her favorite pair, after all.

.

_

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_

_That's all for this chapter. As you can see, the story jumps ahead a couple years so that the characters are older (that's not to say that there won't be little excerpts that flash back into the past like the one at the beginning of this chapter. I don't have any actual plans for any more like it, but who knows, I might come up with a cute little scene I want to add at a later date)._

_Man, the problem with characters having two identities/names is that I never know which name I __should be using when I write out the story. Like, if I should be typing Ricki or Robin. Anyone have any advice for that?_

_As always, review please. I'd love to know what everyone thinks! :)_


	3. Chapter 3

_Hi all, back from my road trip, and I recently got to see the new YJ episodes too. Oh cartoon show, like so many others in the past, you like to mess with my fanfiction continuity. I suppose in my defense, Robin probably doesn't know that Artemis is from Gotham too, but now I have to add something in about that. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, don't sue me. _

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**Chapter Three**

It had been during that brief period between classes, and she'd been deep into her persona as Richard Grayson, Bruce's Wayne's son, when Ricki saw her. That long blond hair was unmistakable, and she had seen Atemis enough times without her mask on to be able to recognize her. It had caught her completely off guard and she'd almost dropped the books she'd been carrying for her next class.

When her lunch period rolled around, she escaped to the library and was quick to hack into the school's records. Sure enough, Artemis was a student – not unexpectedly a grade ahead of Ricki – and Bruce had been the one to fund the scholarship that allowed Artemis to attend Ricki's school.

'_And it hadn't even occurred to him to tell me?'_

Even further below that thought though is the realization that, '_Artemis is from Gotham,' _and that bothered her more than Bruce's failure to communicate. Even more upsetting than that was the fact that up until Artemis came along, Ricki had been perfectly okay with having to dress up as a boy and hide the fact that she was girl from everyone. She was happy before and she wanted that happiness back, not the angry and hurt feelings that she got, like she wasn't good enough, like she was missing out on something.

When she got home from school, she only stuck around long enough to change into her Robin uniform and hop the Bat Cave's zeta-beam teleporter to Mount Justice. She could have stayed at the manor, used the gym there, but she didn't want to see Bruce, didn't want him to speak logically to her and derail her anger like she knew he would.

'_Like he always does.'_

She didn't bother searching out M'gann or Superboy, just headed straight to the base's training room and gym. Training was like therapy for her, being able to lose herself in the physical exertion of it all. Target practice, stretching, flips, balancing on her hands, and all the other various acrobatic moves that she learned in the circus and further improved as Batman's protégé was what she usually liked to focus on, but sometimes she just needed to beat the crap out of something.

Her fist collided with the punching bag, and she knew she needed to stop soon because she hadn't wrapped her hands and her knuckles were about to start bleeding, something that would surely earn her a lecture from Bruce about 'doing it wrong' and 'purposely abusing her body,' but at the moment, she didn't really care. Screw Bruce and his rules and his stupid training techniques. If anyone deserved a lecture, it was _him, _not her, about secret identities and at least having the common decency to _warn _her about–

But those were just excuses, not the real reason behind her anger and that tight, sick feeling she was getting in the pit of her stomach.

She'd thought that Artemis was from Star City, a place that was very different from Gotham. It had been one of her ways of justifying having to dress up as a boy to play the hero role whereas Artemis had to do no such thing, except Artemis _wasn't _from Star City. She was a Gotham girl just like Ricki. She was everything that Ricki was – a non-superpowered _female _hero in Gotham City – but Artemis did it _better._

Gritting her teeth, her next strike hit the punching bag with enough force to tear into it and send sand spilling everywhere. She'd like to say that that was all her doing, but she knew that Superboy used this punching bag pretty frequently and had worn it down quite a bit before she got to it.

She glared down at the sand as anger dug its claws into her like a starving wolf clinging to a meal, because the cold blunt logic of the Bat was creeping into her mind, telling her that she was being irrational, and if anything, that just made her feel worse. She needed to be angry because if she wasn't angry then she was depressed and feeling like she was the one at fault here.

'_Except it _is_ your fault,' _she thought to herself because Artemis sure as hell hadn't done anything wrong, Ricki knew she wasn't mad at her, and Bruce hadn't done anything wrong either, had he?

No, he hadn't. All Bruce had done was not let a nine-year-old girl fight dangerous criminals in Gotham, and the reason for that was obvious to anyone. The idea to dress up as a boy to be Robin had been completely her own, and even that decision had taken a lot of pestering and pleading before Bruce agreed to it.

Ricki scuffed one shoe through the sand on the floor, feeling the fire inside her quickly dying out, and she folded her arms across her chest – her flat chest, bound up tightly with ace bandages.

The sound of quiet footsteps entering the room caught her attention.

"Robin."

Kaldur. She hadn't even known that he was at Mount Justice. Her head tilting slightly, she glanced in the Atlantean's direction, but said nothing.

"You seem upset," he said. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," she said, her anger gone, though the tight sick feeling remained, and if anything felt worse. "Everything's fine. I was just mad and..." she sighed. "It's stupid. It doesn't matter."

"I'm sure that is not the case," Kaldur said with that calm, rational tone of his. "Perhaps you would feel better talking about it."

She hunched her shoulders, looking away with a slight grimace, "It's nothing I can really talk about."

"Ah, something that has to do with your secret identity then?" he asked, not missing a beat.

She nodded, "Yeah, and I can't really think of a way to word it without giving any details away."

She also didn't really want to talk about it with anyone.

"Then I'm sorry I could not be of more help," Kaldur said. "but if you would like, I could be your sparring partner."

Sparring. It would be a nice distraction, and a quick look at the punching bag reminded her that she wouldn't be using _that_ anytime soon. There were more punching bags in the room, but she'd have to clean up the mess she made of the first one before she moved onto another – one of Bruce's rules so that the training room didn't end up completely destroyed.

That could wait until after sparring though.

"Yeah, sure," she said, and they moved over to the main sparring area. Within seconds, the pressurized floor linked up to the training room's computer to register their weight, their footsteps and stats, and cross-referenced that with the records of who was currently in the base to determine that it was her and Aqualad who would be sparring.

They slowly began to circle each other, their stances at the ready, and she watched him carefully, every small movement, every slight shift of his muscles. Kaldur lunged and she twisted on her heal, shifting just slightly to the side as he reached her and striking out at him.

All cumbersome thoughts, everything that had plagued her so much throughout the day, faded from her mind as she became completely focused on the fight, on using all of her skills, all of her training to compensate for their differences in strength. The movement of her body as she fought the Atlantean, the feel of her muscles stretching, straining, it drowned out all of the doubts that had been tormenting her mind, all of her nagging insecurities.

She feinted back and when he lunged again, grappling for her, she quickly sprung forward at him, landing on his shoulders with her hands, her body briefly stretched up in a handstand. She flipped over him, twisting in the air, and then struck him in the back of his knees with a controlled kick, just enough force to cause Kaldur's legs to buckle, and she finished it off by pulling back on his shoulders, completely throwing off the rest of his balance and knocking him to the ground. She landed next to him, grinning and resting one knee on his chest as the training room's computer registered '_Aqualad: Fail' _on the floor next to him.

Helping Kaldur up, both of them commenting on it being a good match, her thoughts from before started up anew, and she couldn't help but think about what if she had started the hero business later on in her life like all of her teammates, and that maybe Batman would have let her be Robin the _Girl _Wonder then, and without any arguments.

If that was the case though, she'd just barely be starting out, and possibly not even then, at the age of thirteen, but perhaps a few years later when she was even older. Would she be as good as she was now with five years of experience in the field under her belt – be capable of beating not just Aqualad, but all of her teammates in a sparring match? Somehow she didn't think so.

And then... they wouldn't even be her teammates, would they? No, not likely, because she wouldn't be nearly experienced enough to keep up with them, and who's to even say that she'd be such good friends with Wally, or any of them for that matter.

Losing all of that just to be able to walk around as a girl, something that hadn't really mattered to her all that much before, it wasn't even slightly worth it.

She just needed to stop comparing herself to Artemis. So they were both from Gotham, so what? It wasn't like Ricki had seen the blond running around Gotham and fighting crime in the five years that she had been Robin. There may be some similarities between them, and she didn't know much of anything about Artemis' past to know how many of those similarities that there were, but they were two completely different people.

"Are you alright?" Kaldur asked, and she realized that she must have been spacing-out.

"Yeah," she said with a genuine smile on her face, "You up for round two?"

When she went to school the next day, she had no real plans to search Artemis out because when she had finally returned home the night before and talked with Bruce – or rather, argued because she still felt like he deserved an argument about the whole thing – he had been very clear that this wasn't an excuse for her to reveal her secret identity. At school, she was simply Richard Grayson, and Richard Grayson had no real reason to go hunt the new girl down and try to become friends with her. If anything, Ricki just figured she'd let things pan out naturally and if she just-so-happened to become school friends with Artemis as Richard, then cool, but otherwise, she wasn't going to go out of her way.

That was the game plan, but then Artemis set her book bag down in the hallway for just a second and some 'popular' girls came along and kicked the book bag over which scattered all of Artemis' stuff down the hall, and the girl who did it had the nerve to say '_Oops' _in a mocking tone,as if it was an accident when it clearly was not.

Ricki just-so-happened to be standing down the hall when it happened and, well, she couldn't just _not_ do anything, and while Richard Grayson wasn't one to pick a fight – as much as she wanted to – the least she could do was help Artemis pick her stuff up off the ground.

"I don't need your pity," Artemis snapped when Ricki held out what she had picked up off the ground. Snatching her possessions out of Ricki's hands, Artemis glared at her briefly, thankfully not recognizing her, before her dark gaze fell off to the side and she shoved everything back into her book bag.

"No pity here," Ricki said, briefly holding her hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Just thought you could use some help."

"Well... thanks, I guess," Artemis muttered, still looking on the defensive.

They didn't become instantaneous 'besties' after that, but they did sit together at lunch and made small-talk, sometimes sharing notes and talking about the school and the teachers and the other students. At the beginning of it all, Ricki felt more like she was hanging out with an enemy that she had a tense truce with than a teammate, but eventually they became comfortable acquaintances and as time went on, they actually became something of friends to each other – a different sort of friendship than her friendship with Wally.

Artemis had yet to make the connection between Richard Grayson and Robin though. Ricki laughed differently as Richard Grayson, she acted more subdued, and Bruce had long ago supplied the school with a doctor's note to get her out of gym class so that the whole locker-room situation never came up, and so that there was _also _no chance of her performing too well in gym and having someone recognize something that they shouldn't.

Ricki supposed that it all worked out for the best.

.

**

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**

.

Wally's ridiculously fast metabolism didn't slow down any just because he was sleeping. During downtime when he was at home, and everything was more relaxed, including the use of his powers, this usually wasn't an issue and he could easily sleep through the night. When he was at Mount Justice though, he was always buzzing with energy because they were training, or going on missions, or coming back from missions, and Wally used his super-speed as if it were just another form of breathing.

Because he was in such a constant state of go-go-go, his appetite knew no bounds, not even while asleep, so it was no huge surprise that he'd find himself waking up from hunger pangs and needing to go get a quick late-night snack. It was a nightly routine for him, every time he spent the night at Mount Justice, and it always happened around 2 or 3AM, like clockwork.

In the past, Wally had tried just keeping a couple granola bars stashed in his nightstand for whenever he woke up, but it had never been enough and since he was waking himself up by eating something anyway, he figured that he might as well do it right. Plus, it's not like it'd take him more than a second to zip down to Mount Justice's kitchen, so as quickly and as _quietly_ as he could – because his route to the kitchen took him past Ricky's room and the last thing Wally wanted to do was wake the other boy up – Wally would speed down to the kitchen and devour whatever he could get his hands on before racing back off to bed.

Then one night he failed to wake up.

It was no huge deal and it had happened in the past, him sleeping through his metabolism wearing away the last of his energy, but this was the first time it had happened at Mount Justice. Every other time, he had been at home or at his Uncle's place, where his family members were around to help him to the kitchen because he was too dizzy and light-headed and _starving. _

He dragged himself out of bed with a groan, the primal thought of '_Need food __**now**__' _being the only thing on his mind.

Wally shuffled across his room to the door, stumbling over various obstacles that littered the floor along the way, and he made a note that he should probably clean his room, but knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon. Clumsily slapping a hand against the touch-pad next to the door frame, when the door slid open, he was a little surprised to see Ricky standing there, dressed in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt with one fist raised up as if to knock.

"Oh," Ricky said, sounding a little surprised himself, though it was hard to tell with the sunglasses. "Good, you're up. M'gann and I just got done making breakfast. Come to the kitchen before it gets cold."

Gets cold? Quite frankly, Wally didn't care if it was covered in freezer-burn, as long as it was food, he was happy. Seriously, he could marry M'gann and Ricky for having the foresight to make breakfast... but then that would be awkward, at least awkward with Ricky, so he kept the thought to himself and followed after his friend when the other boy turned to head back to the kitchen.

Except his legs decided at that moment to stop working and he stumbled sideways, his shoulder hitting the wall, before his knees buckled. Smaller hands caught him as Ricky was suddenly by his side. Grabbing one of Wally's limp arms to be looped over the younger Bat's shoulders, Ricky helped him stand.

"'m okay, just a little drained," Wally insisted blearily.

"Sure, _clearly _you're fine," Ricky said, and Wally didn't need to see the other boy's eyes to know that they were rolling in exasperation.

"Don't be such a drama queen," Wally said, reaching over with his free hand to poke the other boy in the cheek. "I'm just hungry."

"No duh," Ricky said, beginning their trek to the kitchen. "You missed your 'ungodly-hour-of-the-morning' snack."

"Yeah, I-" he blinked, taken aback. "Wait, how do you know about my nightly snack runs?"

"You always pass by my room every time," Ricky said simply, as if it were no big deal, except it _was_ a big deal because it meant that every night that they slept here, he'd been disturbing his friend's sleep, and Ricky never seemed to get enough sleep to begin with, what with that damn Bat schedule and all.

Wally winced, "Jeez, dude, I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me I was waking you up? I would have tried to be quieter, or found a different route to the kitchen."

Ricky waved off his concerns though, saying, "Relax. There was one time when I was still awake anyway, and every other time you've never actually woken me up, I just kind of... _know_ in the morning. Like some kind of internal clock, or 'Wally sense' or something." and then suddenly Ricky looked a little hesitant. "That's not weird, is it?"

"From someone who was trained by Batman, no," Wally said, deadpan expression on his face, and Ricky's hesitant, mildly-uncomfortable look faded.

Finally reaching the kitchen, Ricky walked him over to the kitchen table and helped him into one of the chairs. As his arm slid off Ricky's shoulder, the simple action tugged the other boy's loose shirt down a bit, exposing a pale, slim shoulder and Wally couldn't help but think of how girly Ricky sometimes seemed; kind of a pretty but not exactly 'dainty' girly, more of a strong but pretty kind-of-girly, and really not all that bad looking–

'_Man, I really need to get a girlfriend,_' he suddenly thought, his gaze jerking away from Ricky to burn holes into the tabletop. '_And food.'_

As if she were reading his mind, which was entirely possible, M'gann floated plates of food onto the table in front of him. There were plates that had stacks upon stacks of pancakes, a couple plates of fluffy scrambled eggs, a bowl piled high with cut-up fruit, bagels and toast, and a plate filled with bacon strips. Wally was very much aware that he was drooling and he didn't care.

Pulling a plate of pancakes over to him, he barely even took the time to pour a generous amount of syrup on the pancake stack before he was digging in at super-speed. By the time he was pulling a second plate of pancakes over to him, he was vaguely aware that Kaldur, Superboy, and Artemis had entered the room and were fixing their own breakfast plates, talking about things that Wally let float over his head because – hello – _food!_

_'And speaking of 'hello'...'_

His energy returning to him in leaps and bounds, he stopped in his super-speed eating, setting his fork down for a moment, and flashed a bright smile at M'gann as he said, "Thanks for breakfast, beautiful."

And then he zipped over to where Ricky was sitting – because let it not be said that he didn't notice when a friend did something nice for him – and he gave Ricky a one-armed hug, saying, "You too, Robin. Thanks for breakfast."

Zipping back over to his seat at the table, he was satisfied by the small smile he caught on Ricky's face out of the corner of his eye, and he was sure he completely imagined the slight blush that followed it. A trick of the eye, or a teeny-tiny starvation-induced hallucination... or something.

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* * *

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Under Bruce's tutelage, Ricki had skipped a grade early on and was already starting her freshman year at Gotham Academy when she was thirteen-years-old. She was the youngest among all her peers and was pretty much left alone until Artemis came along. There were a couple acquaintances here and there, mostly girls, who would sometimes smile at her and be nice to her. There were also those who would whisper about her – she was Bruce Wayne's charity-case-of-a-son after all, the circus freak – but that didn't really matter to her because other then whispering and some name-calling, no one really acted outright-maliciously to her.

Then when she got a little older, things... changed, and suddenly there were girls in her school who were being even _more_ nicer to her than usual. They would randomly come over to her and strike up a conversation, giggling and twirling their hair and giving her starry-eyed looks, and before Ricki even knew what was going on, she was carrying Jennifer Shapiro's books to her class – they had the same science class – and Jennifer who insisted on being called 'Jen' _also_ insisted on them being lab partners, and for no apparent reason, decided to start wearing glossy pink lipstick on all the days that they were lab partners and–

Oh, hell.

As made evident by her rather ridiculous excuse made to Wally during that one time the speedster found a pair of her girly underwear, Ricki didn't know all that much about flirting because nobody had ever really flirted with her before, but she wasn't completely ignorant and could recognize the signs of flirting when it was there... and hitting her in the face like a brick with the word 'obvious' printed on it.

So... Yeah... This could be a problem.

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* * *

.

They were all growing teenagers, so it was only natural that some of her teammates started dating people outside of their hero lives, and as long as it didn't interfere with their missions, then it really shouldn't be a problem. That's what Ricki kept telling herself, and yet when Wally was the one to suddenly have a girlfriend, for some reason Ricki found herself kind of... _bothered _by the whole thing.

The girl was someone from Wally's school, someone Ricki had only met once, and that was a brief meeting at best, so it wasn't like she could judge who the girl was as a person, and it wasn't like she could be bothered by something like this random girl not being good enough for Wally ('_even though that's probably true'_).

At first, she thought that maybe she was just feeling bitter over the fact that Wally could easily date someone while she herself wasn't so lucky in that aspect. After all, even when she wasn't Robin, she was still Richard Grayson, a young teen _boy_ in the eyes of her peers, so it wasn't as if she could have an honest relationship with anyone. Dating someone who thought of you as a different gender from what you actually are wasn't a situation that she wanted to get mixed up in (plus, the only ones hitting on her were other girls, and that was a big 'no-thank-you' right there). She supposed that she could date someone over the internet, but she'd have to use an alias for that too, so again, not an honest relationship.

But then, that _couldn't _be the reason behind the bothered feeling because that brief time when Artemis had a boyfriend or when Kaldur started seeing a girl back in Atlantis, Ricki couldn't have cared less on the matter at all. It was only with Wally that she got these annoyed feelings of bitterness.

Ricki hadn't been trained by Batman for nothing though, and after weeks of unconscious glaring and her fingernails biting into the palms of her hands, she came to the conclusion that she was simply jealous that Wally wasn't spending as much of his free time with her as he usually did now that he had a girlfriend. It was petty, she knew, but Wally was her best friend and over the years, she had grown very used to spending so much of her free time with him, and having him always being around to be her bro.

She just wasn't used to having to share him so much, that's all. It was something she'd simply have to adjust to, and she wasn't about to let something like jealousy mess with her friendship. So she sucked it up, and was sure to bury any negative feelings she got whenever Wally would talk too much about his _awesome _girlfriend, or would spend more time with said girlfriend than with her.

Wally wasn't just _her_ bro, she was Wally's bro too, and Ricki was sure that there was some rule in the 'bro code' about _not_ turning into a crazy, jealous harpy over the fact that one bro now had a girlfriend to devote some of his time too.

Then Wally came to tell her that he broke it off with his girlfriend (ahem, _ex-_girlfriend now), and she didn't even get a chance to enjoy her friend's new single status because Wally's next words were, "She cheated on me."

She had known straight off that something was up because Wally's eyes were red and puffy and shining with suppressed tears, and he looked torn between being angry and being completely destroyed. She never would have guessed the cause behind Wally's current state though, and she couldn't understand why anyone would cheat on her friend.

Even if they were all only young teens and most adults wouldn't see it as anything more than a simple high school fling, damn it if Wally didn't really put his heart into that relationship. Despite her mental grumblings about the whole thing beforehand, she _had _actually been paying attention when Wally talked about his girlfriend (well, at least _half _paying attention). She knew that Wally had really liked the girl, and had been so happy dating her.

Though Wally didn't talk about it much, the red-head wasn't very high-up on the social ladder at his school, and despite all his flirting, he wasn't very popular among the opposite sex either, so for someone to actually like him for who he is-

"_I'm so lucky," _he had said on more than one occasion.

Now though...

"God, I'm such a moron," Wally said, his fingers buried in his red hair.

They were at Mount Justice, dressed in their civvies and sitting in her room on her bed. Wally was sitting at the edge of the bed, half hunched over and she was kneeling on the mattress next to him, not really sure what to say. Cuts, bruises, and an array of other different kinds of battle wounds were all things she that knew how to patch up and take care of, but this was a different sort of hurt that she hadn't really ever had to deal with before, and she was at a loss as to what she could do.

"You're not a moron," she finally said, "You're too good for that bitch and she doesn't know what she's missing out on."

Ricki wondered if she stepped over some sort of line by calling the Ex a bitch, but Wally didn't protest it so she didn't apologize.

She hovered at Wally's side, wondering if she should hug him or if that would be awkward. The only time they ever really full-out hugged each other with both arms was after a bad nightmare, or sometimes following the occasional '_dude, I thought you were dead, I'm so happy you're okay, don't ever scare me like that again_'-moments, and she wondered if bad break-ups fell into the same sort of category. In the end, she settled for the one-armed hug, and it seemed to do the trick because Wally slumped against her with a sad sigh.

It took a lot of prodding on her part to get Wally up and moving and not wallowing in self-pity in her room for the rest of the night, but eventually they left base and went to his house via super-speed. They ended up having a bro's night; hanging out in Wally's room, chowing down on junk food, and alternating between playing violent video games like _Left 4 Dead II _and watching movies with lots of action and explosions.

Throughout this all, they had a general running commentary going about how '_girls suck_' and '_who needs_ '_em_' – the irony was not lost on her. She knew Wally was just venting, so whatever, she played along, and anyway, she did agree with him on some points that girls could be pretty awful, and she couldn't help but remember some of the horrible, sometimes psychologically cruel things she'd seen some of the girl's at her school do.

Time got away from them, and although she had hung out at Wally's house plenty of times in the past, she'd never actually spent the night before. Bruce had always been against the idea, saying that it puts her secret at risk, but she knew the real reason was because he just didn't like the idea of her sleeping over at a boy's house, and likely sleeping in the same room as said boy.

These were extenuating circumstances though, a true best friend emergency, and honestly, not only were her and Wally just buds, Wally thought that she was a _guy,_ so what the hell did Bruce _think_ would happen?

The fact that it had been planned for her to stay the night at Mount Justice anyway worked in her favor, so she decided that what Bruce didn't know wouldn't hurt him and continued playing video games with Wally, not pointing out the late hour to the red-head.

It was at about 3AM when Wally fell asleep next to her in the cocoon of blankets, pillows, candy wrappers, and open bags of potato chips that they'd formed on the floor next to his bed. She muted the volume of the movie still playing on the TV and looked over at her friend, her lips pulling down into a frown.

Wally's eyes had dried hours ago, and he looked genuinely okay now, not at all upset like he had been before, but remembering how torn-up he had been when he first came to her at Mount Justice had her glaring at nothing. Using all of her training, she slipped away from their blanket nest without a sound, stealthily moving across the bedroom to pull one of her small hand-held computers out of the bag she had brought with her.

It only took a minute to hack the cheating Ex's Facebook account and spam it with porn and ads for viagra. She wasn't sure if Wally would approve – he's too nice of a guy sometimes – which was why she hadn't suggested it to him straight off, and she _knew _that Bruce wouldn't approve of her abusing her skills in such a way, but to be fair, she could have done a lot worse to the girl than just hacking her Facebook account.

If anything, the girl got off easy.

Things soon went back to normal after that. They had school and missions and training, and she had Wally back full-time as her best friend and bro.

Then two-and-a-half months later, Wally got another girlfriend, and Ricky felt like she was back at square one.

'_No big deal,' _she told herself. '_I just need to adjust, and for real this time.'_

'For real' because last time she had only been tolerating Wally's girlfriend, and just barely at that. No, she couldn't just tolerate the situation, she needed to accept it, and _completely,_ because even if Wally's new girlfriend didn't stick around for very long, Ricki knew that there would be more girlfriends in the future.

If any of those girls messed with Wally like the last one did though, they'd have _her_ to deal with, and thinking that kind of made her feel a little better about the whole thing.

.

* * *

_Yay longer chapters! Boo editing! _

_Hopefully cartoon canon won't completely screw up the general plot I have all thought out for this. Minor things I can work into this, like Artemis actually being from Gotham, but if something super drastic happens like someone leaving the team or – god forbid – Artemis turning out to be cliché evil turncoat, then, well, I _may_ try to work with it, or I may just do the 'artistic-license' thing and reject their reality and substitute my own. _

_**Note 1:** I don't know about side pairings for the story, but if you're still wondering, the 'will they/won't they?' main pairing of this story is Wally/Robin. _

_**Note 2:** I was actually thinking about having Jason Todd in this story, not really as a main plot thing, just a couple minor background story stuff, but I'm worried that it'll mess up whatever kind of flow I have going for this fic (plus, not all of you know who Jason is, and I'm not a super expert on him myself, so I could unknowingly screw up his characterization), so what I was thinking about doing was writing a Jason devoted chapter at the end of the story and after all the main plot stuff is said and done.(Robin's still the main character, but this will be her story with Jason, and hell, maybe Tim will make a cameo appearance. No ideas yet on Damien though) Sort of like a bonus chapter. Would anyone be interested in actually reading this? _

_More to come in the future! Reviews are love, so let me know what you think. :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Hello again everyone! You guys rock so much with your reviews! So here's a nice big chapter for you all.  
_

_To clear up any confusion about Robin's age, basically, unless I jump back in time for a flashback scene, she's 15 in this. Eventually she'll age up to 16, but for right now, she's 15. Sorry if there's been any confusion. ^^;_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, don't sue me. _

* * *

.

**Chapter Four**

It was a little over two years that they had been a team. Two years of missions and crime fighting and growing closer together as teammates, with Wally's souvenir room gradually getting more and more full, and Superboy finally getting his name, Conner or Kon-El, though she still sometimes called him Superboy or Supey even during downtime, they all did. It was a tough habit to break after coming to know him as Superboy for so long, but Kon didn't seem to mind, so no harm done really.

Two years.

It wasn't that long, but at times, it sure felt like it.

She always kind of thought, to be perfectly honest, that her big gender secret would have been exposed by this point. After all, M'gann was a telepath, had even read Ricki's mind on more than one occasion, so you'd think that with a mind reader on the team, hiding something as big as her _actually_ being a girl would be pretty much impossible.

After that first day though way back when, M'gann had always been very respectful about not digging into any of their minds or their innermost thoughts. When you add that to all the training Batman's given her on not letting unwanted thoughts float to the surface where they're easier to read, Ricki guessed that it wasn't too big of a surprise that her secret stayed a secret.

Ricki supposed that she was thankful for this fact because she had no idea what she'd do with herself if her team ever found out. She had been keeping this secret for so long now, and the thought of telling them did not fill her with warm, fuzzy feelings.

But there were times when she liked to pretend...

Pretend that maybe her life was a bit more normal than it actually was, that there was no big gender secret and that she could be like any other sort of girl that there was out there. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate her life and everything that Bruce had done for her, she just sometimes liked to step out of the boys shoes and put on a pair of heels instead.

It was Alfred who had started the whole thing in the first place. Shortly after her job as Robin began, and it became apparent that the 'boy lie' was there to stay, Alfred had been very insistent that it was only healthy that she be given the opportunity to be the girl that she truly is, which meant being able to dress up in dresses and get her hair or nails done, or do whatever else her young female mind could think up, if she so chose to do so.

She had never really been that kind of little girl though, and as far as she knew, those few dresses Alfred had insisted Bruce get for her had remained lost in a closet somewhere collecting dust. Imagine her surprise when, shortly after joining Young Justice, she had finally taken Alfred up on his offer to dress up to have tea somewhere and the elder man had shown her to a closet in one of the guest rooms that had a few dresses that were actually in her size, just in case she ever felt the need to girl-it-up a bit.

Despite sometimes looking at dresses online, or subtly noting the various dresses that she saw some women wearing around town and in passing, she hadn't actually worn a dress herself, not since her parents had died; not even during the few times that she was Riley Pennyworth. She had been a little skeptical at the time, looking through the few dresses hanging up in the closet, and had figured that her original dislike for them when she was younger was still there, even though she found herself thinking more and more about how pretty some dresses were.

But then, putting on one of those dresses for the first time, she'd had a shocking moment of '_Holy crap, I look like a girl.' _And not only did she look like a girl, she was... pretty – kind of? Her stomach had twisted up doubtfully and she had wrung her hands together, unsure. She certainly didn't think she looked boyish... _anymore, _but if she was pretty, even a little, then why was it so easy for everyone to see her as a guy? So maybe not 'pretty' then... maybe...

Either way, she had been surprised to find that she liked it, wearing a dress, and liked the way it looked on her – how it actually showed that she did have a bit of a figure, and the long black-haired wig she sometimes wore when she was Riley completed the image (the point of the wig being to throw people off who could actually recognize Richard Grayson in passing, because without the wig, she still looked far too much like Bruce Wayne's young _male _ward)

It wasn't exactly her scene, going out somewhere fancy for tea and a light lunch, and the dresses Alfred had picked out for her weren't really a style she liked that much either. There were sleeves and the collar was too high up. It was all very... reserved, and she couldn't help but feel like she was being dressed up to go to church on Easter.

A dress was a dress though, even if she sometimes felt the urge to take a pair of scissors to it and make it more modern, more pretty and showing more skin, like the dresses she had admired in the past.

Despite the fact that going out somewhere fancy for tea wasn't her first choice when it came to expressing her feminine side, it was still pretty nice – relaxing even – a step away from the norm, at least for her. It became something her and Alfred did every couple of months, going out for tea and brunch, or lunch, or whatever mealtime it was – where she could dress up pretty and relax and just be a _girl._

And while she'd never let Alfred or Bruce know this, there was also the added bonus of sometimes catching a boy looking at her in a way they'd never normally look at her while she was Robin or Ricky with a _'y.'_

Leaning in close to the full-length mirror in her room, she puckered her lips before frowning. She felt like she should be wearing makeup, just a little bit at least to complete the feminine image, but Bruce always said she was too young to be wearing makeup and whenever she brought it up around Alfred, the elder man would simply say that she didn't need it; something about 'natural beauty,' she didn't really know.

Stepping back from the mirror, she adjusted her wig. Running her fingers through the long black hair that came just a little bit down past her shoulders, she wondered not for the first time if this was what she would look like if she let her hair grow out.

She twirled in place, watching the dress fan out around her before settling, the hem reaching just a little bit past her knees. Folding her hands behind her back, she puffed her chest out because she didn't get to see herself in clothes that were actually made for someone with a chest nearly as much as she would have liked, and it was also a nice reminder that, yes, that's right, she wasn't as flat chested as everyone thought. There _was_ actually something there.

Swinging her arms back and forth, her posture slumped back to something more normal and she looked down, stretching one leg out as she thought, '_Wally better not give me any crap about shaving my legs.'_

Not that her teammates ever really saw her legs bare on a regular basis, but if the situation ever came up, well, she may just end up having to give _Mr. West _a good punch in the shoulder.

Her attention was drawn to a knocking at her bedroom door which was shortly followed by Alfred's voice calling to her, "Miss Richard, are you almost ready to go?"

"Yeah, in a second," she called back.

Abandoning her preening in front of the mirror, she waked over to where her shoes rested. Using the room's bed for support, she slipped the pair of medium-heeled shoes on before walking over and opening the door for the elder man.

"Alright, let's go," she said, a smile on her face.

"Your purse, Miss Richard," Alfred inquired, always the calm, collected one.

"Huh?" she said with a curious blink before she remembered, "Oh right, that thing."

Trotting back into the room, she grabbed the small purse off the bed. It didn't really contain much aside from her cellphone, a credit card in '_Riley's'_ name, and a little container of pepper spray, but her dress didn't exactly have any pockets, so it got the job done.

Now finally all ready, she followed Alfred out of the manor, both of them grabbing a light jacket on the way out. They took one of Bruce's cars out into Gotham, which – although granted, was still a nice car – wasn't nearly as conspicuous as a limo, and anyway, she didn't like the idea of Alfred driving her around in a limo in the first place, and she especially didn't like him driving her around in a limo when they went out on these little outings together. The elder man was like a grandfather to her, not a chauffeur.

"It's too bad Bruce couldn't come," she remarked, slouching in the passenger's seat, watching the scenery passing by.

"Yes, rather unfortunate," Alfred said. "You know how busy he is though."

Between being Bruce Wayne and being Batman, yeah, she got it, and she also understood that the public would find it odd for Bruce to be attending what essentially appeared to be a family outing between Alfred and his niece, and without Richard Grayson along for the little get-together too. The public was always watching, after all, and always reporting on the going-ons of Bruce's life. Quite frankly, Ricki was of the opinion that any nosy gossipers could suck it, but Bruce liked to be a bit more careful than that; liked to control whatever sort of 'odd' thing it was that the media was reporting about him.

"Chin up, Miss Richard," Alfred said, sensing where her thoughts were leading her mood, "Today is meant to be relaxing and stress-free."

With the way their lives were, a stress-free day was sometimes hard to come by. She straightened up in her seat, absentmindedly twirling a finger through long locks of dark hair as she looked over at Alfred and asked, "Where are we going anyway?"

"The Moonshadow Café," Alfred said. "I recall you saying that you liked their sandwiches."

A grin spread across her face. She was always surprised by how Alfred could somehow remember all the little things both her and Bruce said, even small insignificant details they might say in passing. She hardly even remembered the Moonshadow Café herself until Alfred brought it up, and yes, their sandwiches _were_ quite awesome.

The Moonshadow Café was a quaint place known for its good food and tea, where people frequently went in between seeing shows due to the café's close location to the Gotham Opera House, so consequently, the dress code tended to be on the fancy side. It was the perfect sort of place to go to when one bothered to get dressed up nice.

Pulling up next to the little valet podium set up in front of the café, Alfred got out and opened her door for her (because he was stubbornly insistent about being a gentleman) before handing the car keys over to the valet worker as they headed inside. Alfred had called ahead and made reservations, so it hadn't taken very long at all before they were seated.

Sadly, there were no boys even close to being around her age there, neither among the patrons or the waitstaff, so that meant zero chance of someone making eyes at her (in a way that wasn't totally creepy because all of the people there were old enough to be her parents or grandparents). She supposed it was for the best though. One less distraction–

–distractions such as her phone vibrating in her purse, which was pressed up against her foot, and she could tell from the pattern of the vibrating that it was a text message. She had only silenced her phone, not turned it off, because she hadn't thought that it would have been a problem. Yet here she was now, sitting in a nice restaurant, trying to focus on her tea and her meal and her conversation with Alfred, but she couldn't because her phone kept going off every couple of minutes, buzzing against her foot, and she couldn't help but feel curious about what all the texts could possibly say.

"Is there a problem?" Alfred asked, a single composed eyebrow raised, clearly aware that her attention was divided.

"No, no problem," she said with a slightly forced smile, and lightly kicked her purse over so that it wasn't leaning against her foot anymore.

After all, Alfred found manners to be very important, and she had a feeling that the elder man wouldn't approve of her having her cellphone on in the restaurant, and no amount of excuses about needing it on in case of an emergency would be accepted by the man as being a valid reason because they _both_ carried around a small separate device that was used for that exact reason.

Her purse and that damned distracting cellphone now away from her, she thought that would have been the end of it, but not even five minutes later, her phone went off again and this time she could actually _hear_ it buzzing through the fabric of her purse and against the wood floor, and if she could hear it, then Alfred –

She had to hold back a wince when Alfred's gaze met her's, the elder man not saying a thing and yet she could practically hear what he was saying from his bland expression, a dry inquiry of, _"Your cellphone beckons you, Miss Richard, will you answer it, or shall I?"_

"Uhh... be right back!" she said, scrambling out of her chair in a very unladylike manner and snatching her purse out from under the table – knocking it over in the process, spilling out its contents, and floundering at shoving everything back in. She rose back to her feet in kind of a half-backwards spring and made a couple of random gestures over her shoulder as she said, "Er, restroom. Yeah! Back in a sec."

Then she turned and speed-walked off in the direction of the bathrooms, giving her purse a wide-eyed 'what-the-hell?' look and wondering _who_ in the world kept texting her and what could possibly be so important?

Reaching the relative safety of the lady's room, which was actually quite nice for a public restroom, she pulled out her phone and flipped it open, seeing a message that told her she had fifteen new text messages.

And they were all from Wally.

She let out a long suffering sigh. Of course it was Wally, he texted in super-speed. Anyone else would have had the patience to wait more than just a few minutes in between sending a million different texts.

Frowning, she scrolled through the messages.

_~Hey Rob?_

_~Dude?_

_~U there?_

_~Im in Gotham_

_~Uncl B has business w/ ur boss_

She skimmed past several more texts that basically asked the same thing, where she was and if she wanted to meet up somewhere. Then there was the last text, which seemed a little random.

_~Nvm. Giant robot. C u there._

And before she could even really wonder about that, the building shuddered around her, mirrors rattling against the walls. Through the restroom doors, she could hear the other restaurant patrons burst into conversation – all of them talking over each other, yet none of them sounding really too distressed. This was Gotham, after all, and all the locals were pretty well desensitized to the chaotic going-ons of the city.

When the walls shuddered for a second time, a dull but loud _booming _noise sounding off somewhere in the distance, she reacted instinctively. Leaving her purse behind in the bathroom, she bolted through the restaurant, heading straight for the doors, nevermind the fact that she was wearing a dress and heels that weren't all that practical.

She reached the front entrance just in time to see a giant robot foot stomp down onto the street, shattering pavement like glass, before lifting up and away. She had to look up, up, _up _just to see all of the massive steel beast and she could already tell that it wasn't something that had ever made an appearance in Gotham before, which was likely why KF and his uncle had shown up. But then, it wasn't one of Central City's foes either, and while the Justice League had faced a lot of massive robot adversaries in the past, this wasn't one of them.

_'Likely a new baddie,' _she guessed.

As the large robot lumbered down the street and away from the Moonshadow Café, she darted out the front doors, pressing a hand to where her utility belt rested low on her hips underneath her dress.

_'Never leave home without it.'_

The red blur of the Flash shot by in hot pursuit of the robot, kicking up a wind in his wake that blew long locks of dark hair into her vision, and as her dress fluttered against her bare legs, it finally occurred to her that, damnit, this wasn't going to work because she didn't have anything to change into, and even if she took the heels off, she couldn't exactly go charging into battle in a dress like this, not without blowing a variety or different secrets.

_'Maybe there's a spare uniform in the car.'_

It was her best bet, because there was no way she could just sit around and do nothing while KF, the Flash, and Batman (who she knew without a doubt was around somewhere and likely just sticking to the shadows until he made his move) faced off against some giant robot that was rampaging around Gotham.

She turned to leave, but she only got a few quick steps away from the front entrance of the café before she caught sight of a yellow and red blur, Kid Flash, out of the corner of her eye not even a full second before he collided with her, but rather than the both of them getting knocked down, KF caught her around the waist. He picked her up from the ground, and her fingers dug into his uniform like claws as he spun the both of them around, the world nothing but a blur of colors before her eyes, and skidded to a stumbling stop.

As apologies fell past Kid Flash's lips too fast for her to follow, he quickly set her back down on the ground and let go of her as if she might just tazer him. The thought may have crossed her mind had she not been so frazzled and dizzy from the sudden movement and completely lost her balance, stumbling backwards because, _shit, _heels, heels!

The unintelligible run-on sentence apologies stopped quick and in an instant, KF was by her side again, hands around her waist as he steadied her. Half-leaning against her friend, who was being unusually silent, she looked up through the long strands of hair that hung in her eyes, a ruffled, wind-whipped look about her (and she was quite thankful that the wig stayed securely on her head throughout all of that). She saw him looking down at her with this odd, blank expression on his face.

Ricki pulled one hand away from where it had been clutching on to his upper arm, and was about to smack him on the chest and snap something about him doing that on purpose because, well, that's what she normally would have done in this situation.

–but then KF's mouth quirked up in this sheepish, apologetic smile as he said, with complete sincerity, "So sorry about that, beautiful. Didn't mean to startle you."

That corny use of 'beautiful,' a term of endearment she had heard him say, among others, to all sorts of different girls in the past; for some reason it gave her pause. She didn't quite understand it, because she had always kind of found it to be cheesy, something to later roll her eyes at. She'd never once had him use such a term on her though, and in that tone of voice... but that shouldn't matter, should it? It was still overly cheesy, still eye-roll-worthy, and... and anyway, KF was her best friend. _Just _her best friend.

Yet for some reason, her lips were pulling up into this small half-smile, and when that faded, it was only because she was suddenly _very_ much aware of the fact that KF still had his hands wrapped around her waist.

A booming noise from the giant robot echoed in the distance, and KF's hands dropped away from her. The warmth still lingered though, along with the memory of the pressure of his hands, and she could feel the blood rushing to her face.

"Gotta run. Hero stuff and all that," KF said, still smiling at her. "You gonna be alright?"

She nodded numbly, not saying a word, and in the next instance, KF was gone, a yellow and red blur disappearing into the city.

Staring in the direction he had disappeared to, she felt a fluttering in her stomach that didn't belong there, and all she could really think was, '_What the crap was that?'_

When the crime-fighting part of her brain finally kicked in, the part that could push aside all distracting thoughts that didn't have anything to do with the crime she actually had to take care of, it was around that time that Alfred showed up, practically appearing behind her like a ninja as he rested one hand on her shoulder.

"And where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"Didn't you _see _the giant robot?" she asked incredulously, giving him a wide-eyed look.

"Yes," Alfred said. "And I believe Batman and his visitors have everything under control. Wouldn't you agree?"

Her arms hung by her sides like limp noodles as she slouched dejectedly and gave him her best pout, "But–"

"Now, now," Alfred said, apparently unmoved by her pouting. "Gotham and its protectors have faced a lot worse than this. I don't see why we can't enjoy the rest of our day."

She tossed an unsure look over her shoulder, off in the direction that the robot had gone.

"Nothing to worry about, I assure you," Alfred said.

"I guess..."

"I would be more than happy to remain out here and discuss that charming fellow who nearly flattened you, if you would prefer," Alfred said, an amused twinkle in his eyes on his otherwise completely composed face. He of course knew exactly who KF was, so he was obviously messing with her.

"Or," he continued. "We could go back inside and finish our meal."

She darted back inside without another word.

.

* * *

.

Ricki had thought that that would be the end of it, of the gooey fluttery feeling, that it had simply been a fluke, and maybe her stomach had just been upset by what she ate, but then the fluttering came back for a second time, and a third time, and even more times after that. And every single time, it was when Wally was there, when Wally was close by.

She didn't know what the hell that flutter in her stomach was playing at, but she'd come to the quick conclusion that the flutter was evil, even if it brought about warm, happy feelings that she admittedly kind of liked. It was definitely evil though. It twisted her stomach into knots, it set her nerves on edge, and it was beginning to make things feel really, _really _awkward when she was around Wally.

It was like a brand new villain, and as such, she treated it like one, but since she couldn't actually physically fight it like she normally would a villain, she did the next best thing by pushing it back and locking it away in her mind's own little version of Arkham Asylum. She left it there and ignored it to the best of her ability.

Except... the damn thing ended up being more like the rogues of Gotham than she would have liked and somehow ended up making frequent prison breaks. Always when Wally was around, there was a chance of the flutter showing up, as if Wally's presence gave the flutter its strength. The closer Wally was, the more likely of a chance there was of the flutter coming to torment her, and if Wally touched her–

...That sounded dirty when she didn't mean it to be, and she could practically hear the flutter cackling behind its proverbial prison bars.

It was always in a purely platonic way, which was of course what she meant.

She had never really noticed before though just _how much _Wally touched her. A hug, a one-armed hug, ruffling her hair, a high-five, a hand on her shoulder, draping an arm over her shoulders, nudging her in the side with his elbow, leaning up against her, grabbing her by the wrist or by the hand – apparently Wally was a touchy-feely person and she had just never noticed until that stupid fluttery feeling showed up.

Or maybe Wally was acting completely normal for someone who was her friend, and she was just making this into something that was fluttery-feeling-worthy when it really wasn't, because this was Wally she was talking about, who she had never once had fluttery feelings about before.

Wally, who she'd once had a contest with on seeing who could burp the alphabet better. Wally, who she'd had prank wars with in the past, who was her video game companion, by her side in those virtual worlds shooting down virtual zombies and laughing as they both shouted and swore at the game they were playing.

...Wally, who always had her back, both during missions and outside of missions when they were dressed in civvies, who was always there for her...

But no, he was– he was her bro, a good friend, her _best _friend, and only that. Getting fluttery feelings about him would ruin _everything_. Wally thought she was a boy, and telling him or anyone else on the team otherwise wasn't part of the plan in any near future. If anything, he might think that she was gay, and that would just complicate things even more than they already were.

_'Damn it, everything was going fine until he called me 'beautiful' and acted all... all... how he acts around practically every girl!'_

And the fact that he acted that way around her? ...Well, it didn't really matter anyway, did it? Not unless she actually wanted to fuck everything up, which she didn't.

So... no, the fluttery feelings weren't acceptable at all. They threatened to mess with her awesome friendship with Wally and she just couldn't let that happen. She would just have to keep locking them away, keep pushing them back and ignoring them. She was sure that they would eventually fade away and disappear, just like all those years ago with Speedy... er, Red Arrow, though he had been Speedy at the time.

She'd thought that she was over stupid girly crushes – because that's all that this was, she was sure – but apparently not (and the fact that this was just a crush was another reason why she had to squash this flutter down, because for her, crushes never stuck around, so why even attempt to mess with the dynamics of her friendship with Wally for something that would just fade away in the end?).

She could do this though, she could control the fluttery feelings, and do just as good on missions and working with her team as she had been before. She hadn't been trained by Batman for nothing, after all.

"Kid Flash and Robin, you're up next," Black Canary said, breaking Ricki out of her musings and gesturing to the sparring circle where M'gann and Kaldur had just finished their match.

_'Oh crap,' _was her first thought before she backpedaled with a couple quick assurances of, _'No, no, it's fine. It's just a sparring match, and I've faced off with KF plenty of times in the past. This match is no different from the others. I just need to focus.'_

Wally stood across from her on the sparring circle, grinning with his goggles pulled down over his eyes, and she stood there feeling more tense than she'd ever felt in a training exercise like this before.

"Begin," Black Canary said.

When it came to fighting her friends, there was a different strategy for each of them that took their strengths and weaknesses into account. With Wally, it would be pointless to attempt running after him. He was just too fast, so her plan was to let him come to her and get him that way, and if he took on a more defensive role, then she would have to try predicting his movements and intercept him instead. Of course, this strategy applied mostly to these sparring matches; had they been out on the field, she had a variety of things in her belt that could be used against the speedster.

In the case of this match in particular, Wally went on the offensive, becoming a blur of color that shot straight towards her. She was quick to dodge, and then flipped out of the way when he changed direction to try and catch her. Matches between the two of them tended to go this way, with a lot of dodging and quick strikes and blocking. They were both swift fighters, both fast on their feet, and while Wally was much faster, she tended to be more lithe, more able to slip her way out of restraining situations like choke-holds and traps.

She blocked Wally's punch and he blocked her responding strike before zipping out of the way of her kick, and then suddenly he was behind her, shooting straight for her. His arms wrapped around her middle, and usually in this situation, she would have twisted, would have arched away and struck back at him and slipped her way out of his hold, but instead her mind stalled out on her like an old car. The only thing that she could really think about, the only thing that she could focus on, was the feeling of Wally's arms wrapped around her, the feeling of his hands splayed against her waist, and his chest pressed up against her back.

Her stomach did flip-flops as her movements faltered, and in the next instant, her feet were kicked out from under her and she was slammed against the ground; the status of 'fail' that displayed on the floor next to her holding more than just one meaning in her mind. Overall, it was a pretty effective way of bringing her back to reality.

Wally hovered over her, a guilty flicker in his eyes, and she suspected that he probably hadn't meant to knock her down so hard, because usually in a move like that, she would have put up more of a fight. Hell, she would have _actually _fought against him, not become completely pliant.

Wally's lips pulled up into an uneasy smile as he held out his hand, asking, "You alright dude?"

"Yeah, fine," Ricki said as she sat up, holding back a wince that would likely make him feel more guilty. It wasn't Wally's fault that she had been distracted, and it wasn't the speedster's fault that he happened to _be _the distraction.

The flutter quivered briefly in her stomach as she took the offered hand and Wally helped her to her feet. She had a brief, furious moment of mentally arguing with herself and any crush-like feelings to just _stop it, _that it was Wally, just Wally, and that she, or the flutter rather, was being ridiculous and needed to get a grip.

Squash it down, she just needed to squash the feelings down and smother them and lock them away where they'll wither away to nothing.

Ricki sighed quietly – fighting with herself was more exhausting than fighting Wally – and she forced herself to focus on the comments Black Canary was making on her and Wally's match. She was only too happy when the lesson finally ended and she could retreat to her room in Mount Justice to wash away all the sweat and attempt to collect her thoughts, which were beginning to drive her crazy.

A nice hot shower. That's all that she needed at this point, just something to take her mind off of... everything.

_'Maybe a cold shower would be more fitting.'_

She slipped off her boots, taking off her cape and dropping it in a heap by the doorway as the door to her bedroom slid shut behind her. Pulling off her gloves and tossing them onto her bed, she grabbed a change of some of her civvie clothes out of the pull-out drawer that was under her bed before heading into the small bathroom attached to her room.

Originally, the only showers in Mount Justice had been in the locker rooms, but as part of the renovations, Batman made sure to have bathrooms added on to a number of the bedrooms. Later when her and her teammates were all calling dibs on bedrooms, they were all sure to get one that had one of the newly built bathrooms because no one actually liked having to share a bathroom with a bunch of other people, and if given a choice between using a public locker room or having your own personal bathroom, well, that was pretty much a no-brainer.

She swung the bathroom door closed and automatically pushed in the lock button on the door knob – pretty old-fashioned when you consider the entrance to the mountain, the automatic sliding doors, and all the computerized locks that were scattered about the base.

Bare feet padding against the cold tile floor to the bathtub-slash-shower, Ricki peeled off the remainders of her sweaty Robin uniform, setting her utility belt on the sink counter and leaving the rest where it fell. She turned on the bathtub faucet before switching the shower head on and then set about the task of removing the bindings around her chest.

"Oh sweet freedom," she breathed out, dropping the bandages on the ground before shucking off her boxer shorts and slipping past the shower curtain into the spray of hot water.

For a while, she just stood under the running water with her eyes closed and her hands resting against the back of her neck, trying to keep her mind clear and only focus on the massaging feeling of the shower, but despite her attempts, it kept flitting back to her. Her sparring match with Wally, the speedster's arms wrapped around her, the feeling of him pressed up against her back.

And that brought up other memories of recent, similar occurrences. Wally grabbing her hand and dragging her off somewhere because, _'Dude, come on, you've gotta see this!' _Wally leaning up against her, arm draped over her shoulders, and giving her a knowing grin – because he'd thought that she had been checking out a girl at the mall when she'd actually been admiring the girl's dress and the fact that she _wanted _it. Wally sitting down on the couch next to her during movie night, his leg pressed against her leg and then later when he nudged her in the side and leaned close to whisper, _'This is the best part.'_

All of these memories and so many others like it, never before had it been something she'd really ever thought about and now she couldn't get it out of her head, and they all led back to the sparring match, to how _close _he had been during the sparring match, even if it had only been for a few short seconds. She found herself smiling a little, and pressing her hands against the sides of her waist where his hands had been.

"Oh my god, this is so inappropriate!" she said, eyes snapping open, warm fuzzy feelings crumbling into dust.

Ricki grimaced, pressing her palms against her forehead, fingers tangling into wet hair, and leaned sideways against the tiled wall muttering a chant of, "Stupid, stupid, _stupid._"

She sighed, pushing her wet bangs back before reaching down for the shampoo bottle, at this point just wanting to get her shower over and done with. Girly, crush-like thoughts of Wally kind of put a weird spin on the whole thing.

Frowning, she squeezed some shampoo into her palm, and as she set the bottle back down onto the edge of the bathtub, she must have set it down with more force than she meant to because a glob of shampoo shot out of the bottle and hit her directly in the eyes. It happened quicker than she could even process, and for half a second she stood frozen, half-hunched over in a horrified silence – her hand still wrapped around the shampoo bottle – before it all caught up to her and she reared back, sucked in a breath, and screamed.

Trained by Batman or not, getting a large quantity of soap squirted into your eyes fucking _hurts, _and she'd squirt soap into the eyes of anyone who says otherwise.

Shaking out the hand that she had previously squeezed some shampoo into, and smearing any remaining shampoo clinging to her palm against the wall, her other hand flailed out, reaching for the shower head. As Ricki twisted around in place to face the running water, screaming and shouting a series of expletives that would make a sailor proud, she must have moved too quickly because her feet suddenly slid out from under her on the slick bathtub floor.

Ricki reached out blindly as she fell sideways, trying to grab hold of something to regain her balance, but the only thing around to grab was the shower curtain. Faced against the force of her falling, the plastic curtain ripped free from its hooks, becoming more of a hindrance than anything as it tangled around her and prevented her from even being able to fully reach out with both hands to at least catch herself as she fell.

She hit the tiled floor outside of the bathtub with a dull thud, landing on her back with her feet up over the lip of the tub, and just lay there for a moment, coughing from the wind being knocked out of her. Wincing, she pulled her feet down to the ground with the rest of her, twisting so that she was laying on her side, and curled her legs up against her chest, pressing her one non-soapy hand against her eyes as tears ran down her face. She didn't make any move to get up quite yet; just took a moment to lay there as a low, miserable cry tore its way out of her throat.

She wasn't sure what hurt most, the fall or the shampoo in her eyes.

That's when the door to her bathroom was kicked open, splintering the wood of the door frame.

Her eyes shot open despite the burning soapiness and she stared up at the blurry figure before her.

It was Superboy – Conner – standing in the doorway and looking ready for a battle.

Her crying cut off jaggedly in her throat – because _crap, _so not asterous_ – _and Conner's gaze snapped down to her, his look of battle-ready anger transforming to one of shock. The shower curtain may be covering her – she had never been more thankful that the thing wasn't _clear – _and it wasn't exactly like she had a huge chest, but there was no hiding the fact that she _did_ in fact have a chest.

Conner, for all the socializing experience he had gained over the years, could only dumbly stare at her and after a moment of stunned silence, said, "Those look very real."

"Well don't just _stare _at them!" she snapped tearfully, and before she shut her eyes tight again, she saw that he at least had the decency to look away with a sort of shy embarrassment.

The sound of quickly approaching footsteps met her ears, too far away and light on their feet to be Conner's. Someone else was coming, and faint voices soon accompanied the footsteps. Artemis' voice, and Wally's voice.

Wally.

He was coming to her room, where he would see her and... and... who else besides them was coming? Was the whole team on their way? God, no. It was bad enough that Conner had found out, but all of them? They couldn't _all_ know. She wasn't ready for _any _of them to know.

_'This isn't happening, this can't be happening.' _

"Kon, Conner, close the door," she whispered frantically. She squinted her eyes open again, rapidly blinking up at him as she said quietly, "I don't want them to find out, I –"

Her breath hitched, cutting off her words, and Conner looked back over at her briefly, giving her this half-confused, half-concerned look, before adverting his eyes once more.

He shut the door just as Wally's and Artemis' voice entered her bedroom, and despite her bathroom door being kind of broken from Conner kicking it down, it was thankfully able to close all the way. Immediately after there was knocking on the door, done so quickly that it could only be Wally.

"Er, Rob? Conner?" Wally's voice called through the door, sounding very much confused, which really wasn't much of a surprise. The broken door was a clear sign that Conner had been there, and they could hear the water running, signs of someone in the process of taking a shower. When you add those two things together, it all equals out to a rather awkward situation... which it was, just not in quite the same way that Artemis and Wally might be guessing.

The door knob rattled, turning, but before anyone could attempt opening it, Conner pressed a hand against the door, firmly holding it in place, and got this look on his face that Ricki had long ago translated to: '_I look like I'm angry, but I'm actually trying to protect you_.' Had the circumstances been different, she might have found the gesture nice, but as it was, she was a little too busy freaking out over the fact that Conner now _knew, _and that Wally and Artemis were only inches away from knowing.

"Everything all right in there?" Artemis asked.

"Yes," Ricki shouted back from her place on the floor, being the one to answer because – save for holding the door closed – Conner looked to be at a complete loss as to what he should do or say. She absentmindedly wondered if the subject of crossdressing, of hiding your true gender, had ever come up around Conner before now.

"Everything's fine," Ricki continued, "Go away now."

"Kon said he heard screaming," Artemis said, not about to be brushed off so easily.

"I just got soap in my eyes, okay?" she said, her words coming out irritated because more than anything, she just wanted them to go away so that she could focus on flushing her eyes out. "And I slipped and fell but I'm _fine!_"

"You fell?" Wally echoed, and the door knob rattled again. "Dude, are you sure your okay? Maybe I should come in."

"No!" she instantly snapped. "Uh... I mean..."

Burning eyes. Burning, burning, burning. Why the hell wouldn't they just leave?

Squirming, she sat up a bit with one arm supporting her weight and the other holding the shower curtain against her. As much as she tried to hold it back, a shuddering, pitiful whining sound escaped her – the tears falling more quickly, though that was possibly due more to frustration than to the pain. Either way, it was not the sort of sound that conveyed everything being 'alright.'

"Jeez, Rob," the doorknob rattled a third time as Wally tried to get in. "Just let me in to help you. I get that you're like, really modest, but come on, you're _hurt_."

Conner was watching her now, completely unabashed, and had this look like he wanted to leave his post at the door to instead come over and help her. He didn't completely let go of the door, but he took a couple of steps away from it, moving closer towards her, until his arm was stretched out with only his fingertips pressing against the door's surface. It was obvious from the look in his eyes that he didn't want to just leave her on the floor as she was to take care of everything herself.

"Can you... Can you get them out of my room, Conner?" she whispered it so quietly, but she knew he had heard her. "Make them go away and then... then.. just come back, okay? Cause we kinda really need to talk."

He nodded once, his mouth pressed into a thin line as his eyes narrowed, turning away from her to look at the door. As his hand reached down to grab the door knob, she was quick to add, even quieter than before, "Don't tell them anything."

He nodded again, and with her fate for the next few minutes left up to him, she turned so that her back was to the door, not wanting anyone to look in at her and see something for the brief moment that Conner would have the door open for. She shut her eyes tight, pressing her non-soapy hand against them as she listened to the sound of the door opening and then closing, and then the sounds of her friends and teammates talking back and forth.

Wally and Artemis were at first surprised by Conner's presence, not knowing that he was even still in there since he hadn't said anything before, and then there were questions about her. Conner stayed rather tight-lipped about the whole thing though, just assured them that she was fine – that 'he,' Robin, was fine – and then proceeded to get them out of her room, telling them that he was more than enough help for her.

While Conner was busy doing that, she struggled to her feet, since staying curled up on the ground wasn't exactly an option and she really wanted to get over to the sink so that she could rinse the shampoo out of her eyes. Eying the door with only one eye squinted open, she kept the shower curtain wrapped around herself as she rose, too worried that Conner or even someone else might just walk right back through the bathroom door without any warning. Her gaze never moving from the door, she shuffled over to the sink.

She wanted to switch the shower curtain out for one of her large towels, but with the type of day that she was having, it seemed like that would be the exact point that Conner would get back. Knocking before entering wasn't exactly one of Kon's strong points.

Mouth pressed into a thin line, she grabbed one of the towels off of the towel rack, watching the door closely the whole time and listening for any potential approaching footsteps.

_'Oh, just do it.'_

The shower curtain dropped around her feet and the towel whipped in the air as she quickly wrapped it around her. There was thankfully no sudden opening of the bathroom door, no one interrupting her at all. She turned on the sink faucet with a breath of relief.

"Way too much excitement today," she murmured to herself, sniffling.

"Robin?" Conner's voice drifted through the door just as she was leaning over the sink to press water cupped in her hands against her eyes. "They're gone now."

She had a brief moment of wanting to tell him to wait out there until she had gotten dressed and rinsed her eyes out as much as possible, but then, he had already seen her with only a shower curtain to cover her, so seeing her in only a towel wouldn't be any different. Ricki sighed, telling him to come in, and didn't bother moving at all from her spot hunched over the sink as the bathroom door opened up nearby. She could hear him walk in, closing the door behind himself.

Now that the complete shock from before of him walking in on her and discovering her secret had faded, they were left with an awkward silence, disturbed only by the sounds of running water and Conner shuffling unsurely where he stood off to the side.

"Can you turn off the shower?" she said in between rubbing water into her eyes and blinking rapidly, trying to flush them out as much as possible.

Not saying anything, she could hear Conner walk over to the bathtub and turn the water off. For a long while after that, the clone said nothing. It would seem that neither of them knew how to properly deal with the whole talking part of this odd, uncomfortable situation.

"Do you want me to go get Black Canary?" Conner finally asked, sounding very much out of his element.

"What? No," she said.

Definitely not. The less people that knew, the better. That had always been one of the rules, because if more people than just Bruce and Alfred knew, then there was a higher chance of the secret traveling through the grapevine and _everyone_ finding out.

"But you fell," Conner said. "She should check and make sure you didn't hurt yourself, or get a concussion."

"My head feels fine," Ricki insisted, because it honestly did. What was hurting was her eyes, and how much rinsing did she need to do before that fucking shampoo was gone? "If it makes you feel better, she can check my head later. _After _I've 'manned' up."

"I don't understand," Conner said, and she could practically hear the frown in his tone. "Is this a new change, or have you always been..."

"A girl?" she said it so quietly, because it had been this giant secret for so long, it felt weird to be saying it out loud when she wasn't in the safety of the manor, and to someone who hadn't known the truth just minutes earlier. She briefly looked over her shoulder at him with bloodshot eyes before turning back to the running sink faucet. "Yeah, I've always been a... a girl."

"Why do you hide it from everyone?" Conner asked, "There are lots of female crime fighters out there."

She really didn't want to get into it, into all the reasons why, things that she had repeated to herself on so many different occasions in the past. She had done this dance so many times, debating all the reasons why she pretended to be a boy, and feeling like she needed to justify herself and her choices. It was always a freaking rollercoaster of emotions, and she'd rather not have to deal with it. Now or anytime in the near future.

So she gave him the short, watered-down answer.

"Things are different in Gotham, Kon," she said, pressing wet hands to her eyes, water dripping from between her fingers. Her eyes still hurt, but the burning had subsided a little bit. "It's just safer being a boy fighting crime in Gotham than being a girl. Especially since I started out so young."

Conner didn't say anything further in response to that, but a quick glance over at him showed that he didn't look entirely convinced by her explanation, like he still didn't really see the point in her hiding being a girl. She knew that it wasn't meant to be accusing or anything of the sort – Conner may be blunt and socially awkward, still not understanding a lot about the world and the people in it, but he always tended to be generally well-meaning – she supposed though that she was feeling a bit on the defensive side from having her secret found out by someone.

Which was why she turned to face him, giving him a steely look, and said, "This is _my_ choice, alright?"

Her choice, and she didn't need his approval, didn't need to explain herself to him or anyone else.

Conner gave her this calculating look, a stretch of silence between them, before nodding his understanding. She gave him a small smile, relaxing just a bit, and grabbed a washcloth off the towel rack for her eyes. Soaking it under the running water, she squeezed out the excess water before turning off the sink.

"Does anyone else know?" Conner asked.

"No one but Batman." and Alfred. "You can't tell anyone either!"

"That's self-explanatory," Conner said bluntly, which was pretty much his way of saying 'no duh.'

And mentioning Batman reminded her of one very important thing about this whole situation that had yet to be mentioned.

Giving Conner a kind of wide-eyed look, because she could not stress the importance of this enough, she said quite seriously, "You _cannot _tell Batman about walking in on me like this."

Conner gave her a dubious look, "I thought you were in trouble and I came to help. What's wrong about that?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," she said with a wave of her hand. "And even if he finds out that you now know about all of this," she gestured at her toweled body, "Try not to let it slip that you saw me in only a shower curtain, and then in only a towel."

"The shower curtain and the towel cover you up just fine though," Conner said, clearly not understanding what she was saying, why such a thing would bother an over-protective father-figure like Batman.

"Just take my word for it," she said, hands on her hips. "Bats worries about things like that, even if everything's totally innocent. Like that whole island incident when we lost our clothes. He wasn't too happy about that."

To be frank, they were all pretty lucky that Batman didn't flip out about that little event.

At the mention of the island incident, Conner's brow furrowed like he was remembering something, and then he shamelessly stared right down at her chest. The completely straightforward way he did it had her stunned for a second before she pointed up to her face, saying, "Hey, my eyes are up here, _Conner."_

"I know," he said innocently, yet still didn't look up from her chest. "You eyes were actually the first thing I noticed when I kicked your door open. Very blue."

She automatically slapped a hand over her eyes, having honestly forgotten about _that_ part of her secret identity in light of Conner finding out her even bigger secret of being a girl. Realizing the futility in trying to hide her eyes at this point, her hand dropped away from her face.

And Conner was still staring.

"Where do they _go_ when you're dressed as a boy?" the young Kryptonian clone asked curiously.

She turned away from him, pressing the cool, wet washcloth over her eyes.

"Alright, Kon, you're done here. Outta my room."

"But –"

"I _bind them_ down with bandages, okay? Now scoot."

Her main reason for telling him about binding her chest being that she didn't want him asking her teammates, and then have them wondering why he even wanted to know.

"I'll go get Black Canary."

To check her head. Right. She really did feel fine though.

"Give me ten minutes to get dressed before you go get her," she said, peaking out from behind the washcloth to see him already at the bathroom door, his hand reaching for the doorknob. "Um, Conner?"

He looked back at her curiously.

"Thanks for... yeah."

She didn't really know what she was thanking him for; maybe for agreeing to keep her secret, maybe for being generally accepting of said secret even if he didn't really understand her reasoning behind keeping it, or maybe even for coming to help her when he heard her scream, which has subsequently led to him finding out about her. Who knew.

But... either way, maybe it wouldn't be so bad having someone else know

It might even be kind of nice.

.

* * *

.

Unsurprisingly, she did _not _have a concussion, but her eyes did still hurt, and she was feeling pretty drained after the whole shampoo incident, so she decided to stay in her room for the rest of the night, curled up on her bed with the washcloth still pressed against her eyes. Her quiet time with just herself didn't last too long though before there was a knocking at her bedroom. Several quick knocks in a row, so definitely Wally.

For a moment, she contemplated feigning sleep, because she was already emotionally exhausted and she really didn't want to risk having to deal with annoying crush-related symptoms, but she didn't want to leave him worrying about her, and she also didn't want to leave him potentially sulking over her not letting him in to the bathroom earlier to help.

"Come in," she called out.

A slight breeze brushed against her bangs, and in the next instant, Wally was sitting on her bed next to where she was lying down.

"So, are you okay, dude? I mean, I know Supey said you were okay, and Black Canary said you were fine, but –"

She smiled, giving him a light laugh, "I'm okay, Wally. What hurts most now is my pride."

Because seriously, falling in the shower? So stupid. She falls from buildings all the time and never has a problem with that. And then the shampoo? She's dodged much more dangerous stuff being thrown at her as well, but apparently an evil shampoo bottle is just _too much._

"Aw, come on now," Wally said, seemingly following her train of thought. "Even you couldn't possibly have suspected that you'd be attacked by your shampoo bottle while in the shower."

Then he snickered, just a little bit.

"Don't make me kick you," she said, nudging him with a socked foot.

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed, then wrapped a hand around her ankle, holding her foot in place.

And there was that damned flutter.

She stilled on the bed, but didn't pull her foot away from him.

"Totally not fair though, dude," Wally continued on obliviously. "Kon got to see your eyes before _me, _your best bro! That's just not right."

"You wouldn't want to see them right now anyway," she said, washcloth held against them tight. "They're all gross and bloodshot."

His hand left her ankle, and then the bed bounced as Wally collapsed on his side next to her. She could then feel his fingertips touch the edge of the washcloth, and the flutter grew more powerful.

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" Wally asked, a grin clear in his tone.

Her hands tightened over the washcloth and she rolled away so that her back was facing him, saying, "Come on, Walls. You know I can't, and anyway, Kon saw by accident."

She didn't even have to see him to know that he was pouting. Thankfully though, he let up.

"Fine," he said, and she was glad to hear from his tone that he really wasn't that bothered by the whole thing. Always a speedster, Wally quickly moved on from the eye subject. "I got you a present."

There was laughter in his words.

"What is it?" she perked up, curious.

There was another faint gust of wind as Wally zipped off somewhere and then came back. He pressed her sunglasses into her hands and she sat up in bed as she put them on. Opening her eyes half-way, she saw him standing before her bed and proudly holding up the gift for her to see.

"Now you won't slip anymore."

A clear rubber shower mat.

Green eyes sparkled with mirth.

"Hilarious, KF."

.

* * *

_Finally done with this chapter! I really struggled with the part with Superboy in it, because apparently writing dialog for Conner was harder than I thought it'd be. Also, just a quick note, Wally knows Robin's first name, but he doesn't know who she is (in case anyone was confused)._

_As always, review please and let me know what you think. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_The long-awaited chapter five of Black Lace Stockings. Sorry for the delay guys. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice. Don't sue me. _

* * *

.

**Chapter Five**

So the flutter, her stupid crush, it wasn't going away at all despite her best efforts, and as if it wasn't bad enough before, it was even worse now because Wally had found some new girl at his school to pine over, and he wouldn't _shut up _about it – about how amazing this girl was, how pretty and funny she was, and –

What was her name? 'E', started with an 'E.' Emma, her name was _Emma._

"_Rob, did I tell you what Emma did today?"_

_Freakin' Emma. _

Ricki had dealt with jealousy before when it came to Wally during the times he had been dating other girls in the past, but her jealousy then hadn't seemed as bad as it did now. There hadn't been any crush before. At the time, Wally had just been a friend to her, and she had only been jealous that she hadn't been able to spend as much time with him, _as a friend_, and that'd been it... Right?

Right.

Now though, with her crush on the younger speedster, she was jealous because she didn't want to hear him talk about some other girl.

She wanted him to think about _her_ that way.

She knew that it wasn't even a possibility though – him liking her that way – as long as she kept this secret about herself, and when her jealousy reached a point where, during a mission, she'd been very tempted to just push him off the rooftop they were standing on because he kept telepathically talking to her about Emma (_she would've caught him, _she had just wanted to scare him a little bit, enough to get him to shut up), Ricki decided that enough was enough and that this crush needed to be dealt with.

So she figured, after giving it a lot of thought, that it wasn't so much Wally that she was crushing on as it was the _idea_ of a guy actually liking her and paying attention to her in that way. Of _course_ she was going to be flattered by Wally briefly flirting with her when the most flirting she had ever received from a guy in the past had been them making eyes at her from across a room. She'd simply been charmed, not by Wally but by his words, and she'd probably be feeling the same way about any other guy who flirted with her (and wasn't a total creeper about it).

If she wanted to get rid of this crush, she was going to have to put herself 'out there' a bit more, as a girl, and flirt with guys – _try_ to flirt with guys, since she was pretty much clueless when it came to flirting – and hope that they flirted back. She had just the place in mind to accomplish this too, since she couldn't exactly go to any school events and flirt with the guys there without raising a few eyebrows.

One of Gotham's many clubs was having a teens night, and from what she'd heard, this one was pretty popular, so it would be the perfect place for her to go and meet some guys her age (or close to it) while she was 'Riley.' And yeah, she wasn't thrilled by the idea of having to lie about who she was, but it wasn't as if she were looking for anything long-term. She just wanted to have a fun night being the teen girl that she was, and gain the attention of a guy while she was at it – to flirt and maybe dance and get all of those gooey crush-like feelings out of her system so that things could go back to normal between her and Wally.

Shirts and pants littered her bedroom, the dramatic aftermath of her '_why do all my clothes suck/look too much like boy's clothes?_' freak-out. Standing in front of the mirror, she scanned her reflection, taking in her final clothing choice. A figure-fitting black t-shirt with a random spiraling red design on the front, a dark pair of jeans, and some strappy black low-heeled shoes to go along with it.

It was the best she could come up with, which really wasn't too bad considering the few choices that she had. She did kinda wish though that she had more options, and she had a brief moment of thinking that '_Maybe I should just go and tell Bruce that I need some new clothes. Girl clothes.' _

She knew it'd be completely okay, Bruce and Alfred had always said it was okay for her to go out and do something girly, like buying more-feminine clothes, but when she actually thought about doing just that, it always made her worry that he'd see it as her saying that she was unhappy with her life, as both his ward and as Robin, and that she _blamed _him for present circumstances, which totally wasn't the case.

_Her choice – _the thought always seemed to be floating in the back of her mind – _her decision._

She was very much happy, she could just... do with a few changes here and there. That's all. It didn't mean that she found him at fault for anything though, and she felt ridiculous for being worried over something like this, but just knowing that your worries are ridiculous and likely unfounded doesn't make them go away.

It was simply easier to not talk about it, and if she so felt the need, she could secretly go out and buy some new clothes in the same way that she had gotten the 'sexy' panties and bras she currently had hidden in her room.

A growl of frustration escaped her as she fisted her hands up in her hair, her fingertips coated in hair gel. She'd wasted a good half-hour attempting to stylize her black locks into something more pretty and less boyish, but it just wasn't happening. Her hair was simply too short and she didn't know enough about styling hair to know how to make it work. She really hadn't wanted to have to wear the black wig again, but she didn't have too many other options and she wanted to get going because it was getting late enough as it was, teen's night having started at seven and here it was going on eight at night.

With a defeated sigh, she put on the wig, long black locks falling over her shoulders, and after making sure it was securely on, she quickly headed out of her room with a story ready on the tip of her tongue. Bruce always worried when she went out into Gotham on her own, but when she went out as a girl, as Riley, that made him worry even more than usual, and she had a feeling that he wouldn't approve of her going to a club. Alcohol-free teen's night or not.

She tried to breeze out the front door before too many questions could be asked – already had her jacket on and her utility belt secured snugly up her sleeve in a hidden second lining of the jacket– and it was a noble attempt on her part, but nothing got past Bruce's paranoid Bat-senses.

"Where are you heading so late at night?" Bruce asked, calm and collected and strategically seated in the dining room connected to the front entrance, his chair facing the door. He sipped at a cup of tea and had a newspaper open in front of him, as if this were something he normally did every night, which was complete bull because if Bruce was going to drink tea and read the newspaper _anywhere _at this time of night, it was going to be down in the Batcave.

"Just... out," she said as casually as possible, trying to be as nonchalant as him. "To a new friend's house." she added, "I met her at the mall when I was Riley. She invited me over."

Ricki had to hold back from blurting out every little detail she had come up with for her cover story – the exact place she'd met the non-existent girl, the exact time and day that they met, the girl's entire back story – because she knew it would be too suspicious , and if she said all of that, she might as well be holding up a sign that said '_I'm lying.'_

After pausing a moment to let Bruce respond, which he didn't, she continued on, "It's not a school night and you said I could have tonight off."

Bruce's mouth formed a thin line, his eyes narrowed just-so-slightly, and she had to force herself to keep a relaxed air about her. Finally, Bruce asked, "Do you have your cellphone on you?"

"Of course," she responded instantly, and she did. It was in her pants pocket.

Bruce studied her for another moment longer before finally nodding and adjusting his newspaper, turning his attention back to reading it as he said, "Call me if you need me."

And that was it. No question about the girl's name, or where she lived, or if her parents would be home (all questions she had answers to). He didn't even give her a curfew, just gave her his usual vague Bat way of saying '_Stay safe.' _and of course '_I'm here if you need me.' _It was so out-of-the-ordinary that she felt even more tense than before, but Bruce didn't say anything else, so she figured she was in the clear.

After replying with a quick, "Sure," she made her way over to the front door, but she only got as far as grasping the doorknob before Bruce spoke again.

"Ricki," he said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, her knuckles turning white as her grip around the doorknob tightened. "Is there anything you'd like to tell me before you go?"

The ticket she'd gotten in advance to teen's night at the club burned in her back pocket, and she bit the inside of her mouth, wondering if he actually knew anything or if he was just setting her up to blurt out the truth and give herself away. Either option was a very likely possibility for Batman, and the fact that he even suspected her of anything at all probably wasn't a good thing. In the end, she went with what, in her opinion, was the safest option – to deny that there was anything even going on at all.

"No," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him and keeping her voice as level as before, "Nothing comes to mind."

Silence reigned between them.

"I'll... see you later?" she said, hesitantly, half-questioningly.

"Yes," Bruce said, looking up from the newspaper once more to stare unblinkingly in a way that made her fidget in place, and it was only the small smile he gave her that allowed her brain to work long enough for her to figure out how to open the door.

"Have fun."

She was out the door before another awkward word could be said.

.

* * *

.

The newspaper folded closed as soon as the front door clicked shut and icy blue eyes narrowed at the sound of departing footsteps. Bruce's mouth pulled down into a frown as the Flash's voice echoed in his head, memories of a conversation he'd had just a week prior.

"_So... how's Robin?" the question was asked at the end of a League meeting, that rare moment when there was a lull in activity. _

"_Fine," he'd said, and then his eyes narrowed with suspicion, "Why?"_

_Flash floundered for a moment at the sudden ire directed his way and held up his hands defensively as he said, "Well, you know– just.. Wally told me about the spill he took in the bathroom, and–"_

_His gaze snapped over to Black Canary, cutting Barry off as he said, "I was not informed of any such accident."_

_For a moment, Black Canary looked taken aback by the Batglare, but then her own eyes narrowed stubbornly and she rested one hand on her hip, "I didn't bring it up because it wasn't a big deal._" _and then she leaned in close and spoke quietly under her breath so that only he could hear – barring others that had superhearing, and out of the corner of his eye, Bruce saw that they at least had the decency to look away as if they weren't listening._

"_Yes, he slipped in the shower, but he was _fine, _and he was already embarrassed enough by Superboy walking in on him, the last thing the kid needed was me making a spectacle of the whole thing," she said._

_Anything else after that faded into the background as that one thing Canary said seared itself into his thoughts. 'Superboy walking in on him.' _

_Superboy walking in on Robin. _

_Superboy walking in on _Ricki.

_In the shower. _

"Master Bruce?"

Bruce rose to his feet, the newspaper folded up and discarded in the nearest wastebasket as he left the foyer and made his way down to the Batcave.

.

* * *

.

The lights around her pulsed, bathing her in a rainbow of colors, and the music played loudly in the background. Despite her lively surroundings though, she couldn't help but boredly fiddle with the glowing blue Batsignal pendant of the necklace she'd received at the door, and wondered to herself how she had gotten swept up into such a... _dull _conversation.

When the two moderately attractive guys had first approached her, it had started out alright. There was some small-talk and a couple of flirty smiles here and there, and okay, there was no flutter, but it was still something and it was certainly better than just standing off by herself.

Then that small-talk turned into a conversation about hockey. Now, she didn't have any problems with sports talk, it frequently came with the territory when pretending to be a guy, but this wasn't just talking about hockey, this was them talking about how _amazing _they were at the game and_ 'Yeah, got that scar wrestling the puck away from the other team.' _

Please.

From there, things continued to devolve to where they were really just talking _at _her rather than _to _her and seemed more interested in comparing their varying sporting achievements among themselves. She couldn't help but think that none of the guys on her team acted like this, not even Wally. Sure there was a little bragging here and there, but it was all done in a jesting way, and they'd never tried to use it as a kind of pick-up line before.

She pressed her back up against the second floor railing of the balcony looking out onto the dance floor, contemplating just how hard it would be to slip away from them without them noticing in that way she was so famous for as Robin. It was in that exact moment when she saw a flash of long red hair as someone, another girl, bowled past the two guys and latched on to Ricki's arm in a kind of half-hug with an exclamation of, "Best friend!"

She tensed in the girl's hold, but managed to keep herself under control despite the suddenness of it all, because she was Ricki right now, or rather _Riley – _not Robin though, but just a normal girl.

Not that there was anything normal about this entire situation.

As mystery girl turned a dazzling smile on the two rather bewildered-looking guys standing before them, Ricki's mind caught up with the rest her and she had a moment of '_oh, crap' _because this wasn't just some random girl, it was _Barbara-Freakin'-Gordon. _Barbara who knew her and sometimes hung out with her at school, Barbara who just ran up to her and called her _'best friend.'_

While on the outside she was frozen, seemingly unaffected, on the inside, Ricki was panicking, because Barbara recognized her, had figured out who she was. She must have. Why else would she come over like this? But did she think that _Richard _was just crossdressing, or did she realize that _Richard _was actually –

"Sorry guys, gotta steal her away from you," Barbara told the two boys, and then Ricki was being dragged away from them and into the crowd, nearly stumbling as her legs seemed to forget how to walk and just what the hell was _going on?_

It was only when they reached the stairs leading down to the main floor that Barbara finally released the hold she had on Ricki's wrist, and by that point, Ricki was sure that her eyes were comically wide.

"Sorry," Barbara said again, except this time it was directed towards her, and as the older girl turned to face her, she gave Ricki a sheepish look, laughing for a second before she said, "You probably think I'm completely insane. But... you just really looked like you needed to be rescued back there."

Ricki blinked, said nothing, her mind having derailed completely by this point.

Barbara suddenly looked embarrassed, asked, "Or did I misjudge that entirely and those were your friends back there?"

Friends? What?

"What?"

She mentally flailed, grabbing hold of the reins to her composure.

"No," she said.

Still though, _what?_

Barbara held out her hand, an easy-going smile on her face, "I'm Barbara."

She was introducing herself.

Which meant that she _didn't _recognize Ricki, and really, in the flashing colored lights and overall dim tone to the club that made it kind of hard to see things completely clearly, it shouldn't have been a surprise that the older girl didn't connect her with Richard Grayson from school. Wally hadn't known it was her either when he quite literally ran into her, and that was during daylight hours –_ but don't think about Wally_ – all the same though, Ricki was beyond relieved.

She clasped Barbara's hand, shaking it with a small smile, "Riley." And then she hooked her thumbs into her jean's pockets and quirked an eyebrow at the redhead, "Rescued me?"

"Clearly you were too nice to tell those guys to get lost," Barb said with a simple shrug, "And I could hardly ignore a sister-in-need. What can I say? I'm just in a hero-ing mood tonight."

And she 'rescued' Ricki by providing her with an escape-route, so to speak.

Ricki laughed, any remaining stress that she felt ebbing away, "Guess I owe you one then, Supergirl."

"You can buy me a soda with a little umbrella in it later," Barbara said breezily, then shot one arm into the air, pointing at the ceiling as she dramatically announced, "But first, we dance! Because you can't _not _dance to this song!"

Before Ricki could even blink, Barbara had her by the wrist again and was pulling her down the stairs to the main floor, the music growing even louder the closer they got to the dance floor, and thus to the DJ and the speakers. As they wove through the moving masses, Barbara leading the way, the beginning beat of the song finally registered in Ricki's mind as one she recognized.

_'Party rock!' _echoed from the speakers and floated overhead as the pulsing lights synced up to the beat of the song.

She laughed when she heard it, the _Party Rock Anthem, _and a smile spread across her face as she walked a bit more quickly, following Barbara's insistent tugs and matching the older girl's pace more easily. It was a song she had on her music playlist back home, and secretly she was a little thrilled at the prospect of dancing to it with a large crowd like this, so when Barbara playfully pushed her out onto the dance floor and straight into the heart of it all with a shout of, "Let's see your shuffle, Rye!" Ricki just let herself fall into the beat of the song, dancing along with everyone around her.

_Party rock is in the house tonight_

_Everybody just have a good time_

The music thrummed up through her body from the dance floor, a vibration she could feel deep in her chest, the techno washing over her and clearing away all thoughts of a certain green-eyed redhead.

_And we gonna make you lose your mind_

_Everybody just have a good time_

Barbara sidled up next to her, a spring in her step and her movements matching up with Ricki's.

It wasn't exactly how Ricki saw her night going when she'd first come up with the plan to go to the club, but dancing along with Barbara like this was more fun than she'd had for a while now, and she could feel a tightness in her chest easing its grip, a feeling she hadn't even noticed was there until now. Sure, dancing didn't really offer a solution to any of her problems, but for the moment it was a nice reprieve, and anyway, by Gotham's standards, the night was still young. Plenty of time to see where else the night might lead, plenty of time to see who else she might meet in a club as crowded and lively as this.

–_We just wanna see ya... shake that!_

_.  
_

* * *

_.  
_

"_Recognized, Batman – 02."_

"_Superboy – B-04."_

When Conner stepped out of the zeta tube, he couldn't stop his gaze from wandering.

The Batcave.

It actually was a cave, and there really were bats hanging high up above along the ceiling. It wasn't so much that though that grabbed his attention and brought about a kind of awe that he attempted to keep hidden from his face – the base in Mount Justice was pretty much a cave in its own right after all. It was that this... this just seemed so much more expansive – _greater _than Mount Justice. There was just so much more to it – steel and technology integrated into stone walls, and from where he silently stood on the platform just outside of the zeta tube, he could see more levels stretching both high above and far below him, a labyrinth that it seemed only Batman and Robin would know how to navigate.

He never for once thought he'd actually get to see the place, what with how secretive the two Gotham heroes were.

But then, this wasn't exactly a courtesy call, and Conner mentally steeled himself for whatever might come, his eyes narrowing suspiciously on the Dark Knight's back, because once you've dealt with cases of mind-control and stolen identities, it was a little hard to completely trust anyone a hundred percent again.

"_We need to talk," _the man had told him at Mount Justice. "_Away from prying minds." _

Conner knew he meant M'gann, who had been watching them both with a poorly concealed look of concern from where she'd stood in the kitchen, and he'd responded, offended on her behalf, that _'M'gann wouldn't eavesdrop.'_

Batman's eyes had narrowed down at him, _"I don't take those risks when it comes to Robin."_

The fact that it was about Robin, and the way the man was acting, it was why he followed Batman into the zeta tubes without any further arguments or demands, and M'gann prodding through their mental link, that something could be wrong, that he should go see what the man wanted, and that they could always get in contact through the comm links later if need be.

And so here he was now, and he already had fairly good idea of what this could be about – the memory of what had happened, what he'd found out about Robin a little over a week prior was still fresh in his mind.

"Your suspicions are valid but unwarranted," Batman said, his cape sweeping around his feet as he turned to face Conner, and as those masked eyes took in his tense stance and wary expression, they lost some of their bite – still steely and commanding respect, but not _angry _as Conner had originally thought.

"You're not in trouble," the man said.

Conner's fingers uncurled from the fists he hadn't even been fully aware that he'd been making.

"You said this was... something to do with Robin?" Conner prodded carefully.

Batman's mouth pressed into a thin line, shielded white eyes seeming to consider Conner carefully before he spoke, "It has come to my attention that there was a certain... _bathroom _incident between you and my protégé, one that merited further investigation."

It was exactly what Conner thought it was about then, and for a moment, Conner was reminded of the movies and the TV shows M'gann liked to watch, where there was information – more often than not _important _information – that some or all of the characters seemed to know, information that could clear up so many problems and misunderstandings and solve things right then and there, but rather than divulge that information, rather than just come out and say what they knew, those characters on the screen would dance around the issue, around their words, and it never made sense to Conner, why they wasted so much time doing that.

Never let it be said that he was one to beat around the bush.

"You're wondering if I know that Robin's a girl," Conner said.

"I suppose that answers my question, doesn't it?" Batman said, not faltering for a second – even the faint _thump, thump _Conner could hear of his heartbeat remaining steady. The man continued on without pause, "Which leads me to.. certain concerns regarding the issue."

Suddenly Conner was faced with a look that was far more intimidating than the Dark Knight's usual brooding and looming demeanor. He was faced with the look of a father, a parent, a family member who would do whatever it took to protect their own – a look that he _still _wasn't used to seeing on Superman's face (_a look that the Man of Steel intended for him)_ even two years later after that initial year of rejection.

And Conner found that he was at a loss about what 'concerns' the man could mean, because these weren't the concerns of _Batman_, they were the concerns of the man beneath the cape, the concerns of a _father _about his _daughter._

Brow furrowed, his mind floundered, and he grabbed on to the first real idea he could come up with.

Which was, regrettably, "I– I didn't see anything that I shouldn't– I mean, she was completely covered by the towel–"

His brain screeched to a halt, Robin's words echoing in his head about _not _letting that bit of information be known – although honestly, he half blamed Robin for even putting that thought in his head to begin with. He kind of doubted he would have come up with it all on his own.

"That is to say," he concluded rather pathetically, "that I _didn't _see her in only a towel."

You could have cut the tension in the air with a butter knife and served it up on toast.

"...Ignoring that," Batman began slowly, and muttered quietly under his breath, "_for my own sanity–" _he continued on unencumbered, "– My _concerns, _of course, are of your ability to keep this information to yourself."

Oh.

"She asked me the same thing," Conner said, "And I told her I would, but..." he hesitated, because the man standing before him likely had a hand in it all, in the lie surrounding Robin's life, but determination drove him on. He needed to say his piece, "I don't understand why there's a need for her to hide this at all."

"I am not asking you to fully understand the circumstances pertaining to this situation," the man said, his gaze cold, "nor to understand Gotham and the way this city works. And it is also not your prerogative to _know_ all of those details either. I'm asking you if you can be trusted with this secret."

Conner didn't bother hiding his glare, nor his disapproval over the situation, but he nodded his head regardless, said, "Yes, you can trust me." because he still remembered what Robin as said, that this was _her choice, _and he would respect _her choice._

"Good," Batman said.

Then just like that, the tension was gone, and the next thing he knew, Batman was giving him a mission – really, a small task – because Robin had gone out on her own into the city, as a civilian, and Batman wanted Conner to go after her just in case she ran into any kind of trouble. Before he could really think too much about that – that maybe Robin would find offense with him checking up on her – he was given coordinates to her location and sent back through the zeta tube, dropped off out in the middle of Gotham, and, well, he _could _go back to the mountain, but now all he could think about was what if she _did _run into some kind of trouble?

A low growl rumbling quietly in his throat, Conner huffed out a breath and dug his comm-link out of his pocket, letting M'gann know that everything was fine and that he was just going to be held up a little bit helping Robin with a task for the night.

With that taken care of, he was off and leaping through the streets of Gotham.

.

* * *

_._

_I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know _

_everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold_

_hey_

_I'll be fine once I get it _

_yeah, I'll be good_

She swayed and danced to the pulse of the song, brushing against the moving bodies around her and not caring, because she wasn't hiding anything here, she was just another girl in the crowd dancing and having a good time.

Her mouth quirked up into a small smile when she caught green eyes watching her through the crowd for what would be the third time that night – and yeah, okay, apparently she had a 'type' and it was boys with red hair and green eyes.. or really just red hair because Roy had blue eyes, but she wasn't going to get into _that _subject – after all, this was a night about moving forward, not back, and honestly, she couldn't help who she was drawn to, especially when that person was giving her those kind of looks and paying her the right amount of attention.

She shut her eyes, drowning her thoughts in the music and dancing before opening her eyes again and glancing his way.

Yes, he was still definitely watching her as he himself danced.

Her smile grew a bit wider.

"Go dance with him!" Barbara suddenly said, loud enough for Ricki to hear, but not so loud that it carried across the room.

Ricki faltered in her dancing, taken aback, "What?" and then a kind of nervousness flooded up inside of her and she found herself shaking her head, "No – no, I'm fine right here."

It was what she came here for, she _knew _that, but knowing and doing were two completely different things. Those two guys from before, that was different. _They_ walked up to _her_. She herself though? She couldn't just– just walk right up to him like that. She needed to... build up her nerves or something first, because she'd never done anything like this before. She'd never just walked up to a potential someone that she might like who she'd never met before and simply _talked _to them.

Barbara was having none of it though, of wussing out or otherwise, and seemed to be of the mindset that one should be pushed into the pool to get used to the water. Clapping her hands down onto Ricki's shoulders, she said, "Come on, you've been making eyes at each other for like the past five songs."

Then, much like when she first dragged Ricki onto the dance floor, Barbara pushed her forward, and while Ricki was sure that the older girl didn't mean to be as forceful as she was, she still stumbled on her feet because, hello, _heels – _maybe not ridiculously high heels, but heels none-the-less.

Suddenly tanned hands were wrapping around her upper arms, offering support as her legs shook for just the briefest moment before she regained her balance, and as her eyes shot up to the owner of those hands, any sense of calm and composure she had regained from nearly falling was gone again because it was him, the boy with the green eyes who she'd been smiling at before and who had been smiling back at her. Her mind flickered back to Wally, to when he ran into her and caught her, to when his arms were wrapped around her – but no, she stopped herself, because she didn't want to think about Wally, and this wasn't Wally, not at all, it was some other boy whose skin was much tanner and his red hair longer, long enough to be up in a short ponytail, and he didn't have his arms around her either, just had his hands holding her by her arms.

He also wasn't smiling, not like he'd been before, and for someone who didn't know her at all, he looked surprisingly concerned.

"You are unharmed, I hope?" he asked, and the tone and his way of speaking totally didn't match the package, not that she was complaining. She could tell from that one sentence alone though that he wasn't native to Gotham. It was enough of a shock to break her stupor and give her back her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said while at the same time struggling to squash down any remaining nervousness.

"Ah, I am glad!" he said, and she didn't quite know what to make of how he went from serious to jubilant so quickly. Releasing her arms, he reached down and clasped her hands in his own, saying with a bright smile, "And I feel that a proper introduction is in order. Hello! I am Kory Andr, but you may call me Kory, Miss...?"

"Uh, Riley," she said, smiling unsurely, "Riley Pennyworth."

"It is very nice to meet you, Riley-Riley Pennyworth!" he said, shaking her hands enthusiastically.

She blinked, mind thrown, "Wha– no, it's not– it's _just _Riley."

"Oh, I see," Kory said, eyes alight, "You were simply engaging in your culture's habit of repeating one's name, much like the Bond-James-Bond."

Was this guy for real?

"Sure," she said slowly.

"Might I interest you in joining me for more of the dancing to loud music?" he asked cheerfully, and this time her smile came more easily. He was a strange one for sure, but his words sounded genuine, and so she nodded her head, accepting his offer, and let him lead her away from the outer edge of the dance floor and more deeper into the crowd.

The song was nearing its end by this point, and she fell back into the beat of it as they slowed to a stop and he turned back to face her – her hips swaying and her body moving to the _bum, bum, bum, _of the techno, watching the way his green eyes studied her as he danced close. Very close.

Close enough that he reached out and rested his hands on her waist. She could feel her face heat up, and couldn't be more thankful for the flashing lights than at that moment because she was sure that they were hiding a blush. It took a lot of self-control to keep herself dancing as if it was no big deal.

"I hope this is not... presumptuous of me. Is it?" he asked.

"No," Ricki squeaked, then cleared her throat. "No, it's fine."

'Fine,' _maybe, _but horribly awkward, at least to her. He was quite, _quite_ close now, and she had no idea what to do with her arms with him being so close. Her blue eyes cast around them, discretely, looking for some kind of indicator, or rather, dancing advice, and at first there was none because the people around them weren't really dancing _together_ as she was with Kory, but were just dancing next to each other and near each other more or less.

And then she spotted Barbara through the crowd, dancing with some tall blond guy, her back to his front as they moved together. Barbara twisted around to face the guy, a smile clear on her face, and she draped her arms over his shoulders as his hands slid from her waist down to her hips, all the while the older girl looked completely at ease.

Ricki looked away, her gaze snapping back over to Kory just as one song bled into the next and they adjusted their pace and movements to the slightly slower beat.

Blue eyes met green and he furrowed his brow as he looked down at her.

"You are not having fun?" he asked.

She blinked, took a tight, nervous breath and reached up, resting her hands on his shoulders. Smiled through the tiny bubblings of anxiety because it was more convincing than whatever sort of pinched expression she must have had before.

"I'm having fun," she assured him, and through the awkwardness of it all, through her nervousness and uncertainty of what was a new experience for her, she actually was kind of having fun. She could even say that it was... nice.

Nice to be held by someone who wasn't family or a parental figure, to be so close to someone who didn't see her as _just _a friend, who didn't see her as a guy–

"Your smile is quite pretty."

–who said things like _that, _even if it was a little cheesy and, for flirting, kind of blunt.

So Ricki kept dancing. With him. And the night breezed by around them to a point where it suddenly struck her that she didn't feel nervous anymore, and she completely lost track of how many songs had played or how long they had been dancing for – just let herself get lost in the joy of it all.

"So what brings you to Gotham?" she asked, an eyebrow quirked, "Business or pleasure?" and she mentally backpedaled because if that didn't sound like a pickup line, then she didn't know what did.

He smiled, oblivious, or at least not seeming to pick up on her wording.

"I originally was just passing through," he explained. "But then I made a close friend. I am sticking around for him."

"That's nice," she said, because it was. That kind of loyalty that was so clear in his words was hard to come by in people, especially in Gotham– but then, he wasn't exactly from Gotham.

"Yes," Kory continued, "I am actually here tonight because of him. He insisted that I experience this... _club scene, _with your flashing lights and blaring music."

Then he glanced to the side, and she saw a kind of joy light up in his eyes as he said, "Ah, you see, he is over there talking to that girl with the glowing bands around her wrists." And as Ricki followed his line-of-sight, Kory suddenly shot one arm in the air and waved enthusiastically as he shouted over the music, "Jay, my friend! Look! I am doing the dancing! You are right, it is quite enjoyable!"

And at the sight of a boy with hair as dark as hers giving them a '_what the hell' _look and then pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, Ricki couldn't help it, she started laughing – really laughing – which made Kory smile even wider, looking down at her with dazzling green eyes.

Then the lights went out and the music cut, all of the dancing around her stopping along with it.

Her body immediately fell into the defensive, muscles tensing and her eyes darting around the club as her hands dropped away from Kory. Her thoughts shot to her utility belt and she mentally cursed – it was in the club's coat-check area, still concealed within the second lining of her jacket, because once she'd reached the club and got inside, she really hadn't thought she'd need it, add to that the fact that it would be kind of hard to _keep _it hidden if she was going to be dancing with people.

She took a step back from Kory, planning on slipping away unnoticed to go fetch it because this was _Gotham _after all and she needed to be prepared for any such occurrence, but before she could, a single light came back on and it was pointing at the DJ.

Who was wearing a domino mask.

Her hands curled into fists.

"It's ten o'clock boys and girls," the man rumbled over the speakers. "For all you new-comers out there, that means it's a time when the _Bat _comes out to play with all of Gotham's worst."

There was a short pause, filled up only with the quiet murmuring of the crowd around her, yet it wasn't the murmuring of fear, or even apathy. There was a note of excitement in their voices, and as she watched the silhouettes of the teens around her shifting oddly in the dark as others darted out of the shadowed corners of the club and onto the dance floor, caution and a readiness to fight gave way to confusion.

Then the DJ grabbed hold of the microphone, pulling it close, and said only three words, "So let's play."

The music started anew as the lights flared back on, blindingly bright, yet different from before because the colors around her now glowed in a way that could only be caused by the effects of a blacklight, and there were dozens of people scattered about now who were wearing cheap plastic masks and black capes you'd probably get from a store-bought Batman Halloween costume, while others had smeared on brightly-colored face paint that shone like a neon sign in the lights. Some with too-wide smiles painted on, resembling a certain clown, or just a clown in general – or white makeup with black lipstick and a mask with a jester's hat, and the variations didn't stop there – pale green makeup with dark green lipstick, some with neon paint smeared down half their face, others had burlap sacks over their heads with eye-holes cut out and smiley-faces drawn on, and all around were question marks, and top-hats, and canes, and cat ears.

Her mind stalled at the sight of it all as everyone began dancing again, waving glowsticks and glowing Batsignal pendants in the air, and instinct had her jerking away when one clown-dressed teen in-particular came just a bit too close. Obviously the club wasn't under attack, she could see that now, but even for her, even after all that she had seen and dealt with in her life, this was just a bit too strange for her tastes. She could understand people dressing up as Batman, or any superhero really, but dressing up as the villains? As the people who terrorized Gotham and murdered and maimed so many?

It didn't make sense to her.

"Is something wrong?"

Her gaze snapped over to Kory. She had honestly forgotten about him for a moment. Thankfully, he wasn't wearing any sort of costume.

He looked down at her with a furrowed brow, and again that look of concern.

"Just... not feeling much like dancing anymore," she said, her wavering smile giving away her unease.

"We could go upstairs if you would like," he offered. "I believe there are sofas for sitting."

She cast an unsure look at the crowd around them, her mood feeling pretty much spoiled for the night, but she supposed things might pick up and that she should at least give it a chance.

"Sure," she finally said, looking back up at him. "I'll go grab us some sodas and then meet you upstairs."

"Ah, wonderful, and I will acquire us a place for sitting!" he announced, a determined look on his face, and she could only wish him luck as he turned and plowed his way through the crowd, because with the amount of people that there were at this club, unless he were to physically remove someone from their seat, she doubted he'd be able to find any space on the couches.

Weaving through the crowd herself, she made her way over to the bar and began the wait for the people in front of her to get their drinks and move off to the side so that she could have her turn. She glanced over her shoulder every now and then, trying and failing to see if she could spot Barbara anywhere – she did owe the girl a drink after all – and it was when she was about one row of people away from the counter when she felt her phone buzzing.

Her thoughts immediately went to Bruce and she dug it out of her pocket, because even though it was a night off for her, Batman had likely still gone out on patrol himself, and for all she knew, there could be some kind of emergency going on.

As Ricki flipped open her phone though, she saw that it was a text from Wally. Her lips turned down into a frown, because so much for getting him off her mind for one night. She very nearly considered ignoring it and going back to her task of getting drinks – but again, what if there was some sort of emergency?

With a sigh, she clicked the _open text _button.

And blinked.

And stared.

And wondered '_what the hell...'_

_~Duckers Sidewinder ~ _the text read.

Thumbs jabbing at the keys, she quickly texted back.

~_Is that code for 'help'? Should I be concerned?_

A minute dragged by. She hardly even noticed or cared as people pushed past her to order their drinks. Then the phone buzzed again.

~_We don't have a code for 'help.'_

She shut her eyes for a second, pressed a hand to her forehead, and took that response as a '_no'_

The phone buzzed a third time.

_~We should tho._

She glared down at the phone. Texted back.

_~WTF Wally?_

He responded almost immediately.

_~Ur radio host name. 1st name is name of childhood stuffed animal, 2nd is name of fav fair ride._

_~Duckers Sidewinder._

Rolling her eyes, she flipped her phone closed with an audible _snap, _andninja'd her way past the few people crowded around the bar in front of her, ordering two sodas. As she waited for the bartender to return with her drinks, fingertips drumming against the countertop, Wally's text settled in her mind and wouldn't really leave her alone no matter how much she wanted to ignore it as him being annoying. Your radio host name, with rules similar to finding out your soap opera name or stripper name – your childhood stuffed animal combined with your favorite fair ride – the beat-up looking elephant plushie that was sitting on a shelf in her bedroom drifted into her thoughts, and then for a favorite fair ride...

Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she flipped her phone back open and sent out a short text.

_~Zitka Windseeker_

Honestly couldn't have sounded girlier.

Always the super-speed texter, his response was quick, and in several texts in a row.

_~Windseeker?_

_~ Dude, thats perfect._

_~Zitka tho?_

_~lol, U weird kid U._

Ricki pursed her lips, texted _~So says *Duckers* _

Flipping her phone closed for the last time, she shoved it back into her pocket, determined to ignore him for the rest of the night. Collecting her drinks from the bartender, she turned back to the crowd around her, her eyes trailing over the mass of swarming teens as she shuffled past several people trying to get in their drink orders; her mind taking in the costume props they wore – masks and capes and clown makeup – and there was a Joker-esc girl dancing pressed up between two Batman guys.

"You seem to disapprove."

Blue eyes snapped over to her right, and it took her a moment to recognize him as the boy Kory had waved so enthusiastically at. Now that she had a closer look at him, she realized that he was actually a bit younger than she'd previously thought. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and raised an eyebrow at her when he met her gaze, a slight smirk on his face.

"It's clear on your face," he said, gesturing at his own face.

"Just seems a little tasteless is all," she said.

"Nah," he said, looking away from her and back out at the crowd. "Just think of it more like.. they're trying to make Gotham seem less, you know," he shrugged, "_horrifying." _he glanced back over to her, "Take away the fear from the source. Makes people like the _Joker _seem less scary."

"I... guess I can see that," she admitted, casting one last look out on the dance floor before turning her attention back to the dark haired boy beside her, "You're Kory's friend, right? Jay?"

"_Jason,_" he said with just a touch of annoyance, but it was gone as quickly as it came, "Anyway," he continues breezily, "Kory's upstairs if you're–"

"_Rye!"_

Ricki stumbled forward as arms wrapped around her from behind, soda sloshing over the brim of each glass and running down her hands and in between her fingers. She grimaced, sagging under the weight clinging to her back.

It was Barbara.

"Hey girl!" the redhead exclaimed all too joyfully, and quite loudly right into Ricki's ear, "Is this guy bothering you? I'll totally fight him off for you!"

Jason raised an eyebrow at them, and as Barbara hissed at him and made clawing motions in the air with one hand, Ricki's initial annoyance morphed into bewilderment. She shrugged out of Barbara's hold, being careful not to spill anymore of the soda, and turned to give the older girl a calculating look. What she saw, she definitely didn't like.

Without Ricki to lean on, Barbara was swaying unsteadily on her feet, her eyes half-lidded and a goofy smile on her face, and every few seconds she would burst into little giggle fits. Shoving her drinks into Jason's hands, Ricki reached out to the older girl, wrapping one hand around her forearm and resting the other on her shoulder, asking, "Barbara, are you okay? You seem a little –"

"I'm fine, completely fine," Barbara said, waving away Ricki's concern. "Great in fact! I just punched this guy and he totally whined like a little bitch. It was awesome."

"You what?" Ricki cast her gaze about, half-expecting to see some kind of commotion heading their way, but other than the blissful chaos of the other teens partying around them, there was nothing. Turning worried blue eyes back to Barbara, she asked, "What guy?"

"Oh, what?" Barbara asked, brow furrowing, "No, it's fine. I'm fine."

The redhead wasn't alert, she couldn't seem to focus, on Ricki or the questions she was asking – her glazed eyes following the movement of the lights around them with a kind of drifting fascination. Ricki leaned in closer to the older girl, studying her overall demeanor, trying to determine exactly what she was seeing – some form of intoxication _she knew_, because these weren't the actions of a level-headed person, but whether it was from alcohol or perhaps something worse was the true question.

"Barb?" she snapped her fingers in front of the girl's face to get her attention, "Barbara, did you take anything?"

The girl she knew from school, she certainly didn't seem the type, but then, one never knows. People as a whole could be unpredictable, and even the ones she was closest to could still surprise her sometimes.

But that wasn't the case this time, not tonight and not with Barbara, who got this tight look around her eyes, who looked so confused as she mumbled, "What? No, I... What are you talking about?"

Barbara shook her head like she was trying to clear it, and Ricki fumbled to adjust her hold and get a better grip on the older girl as she sagged and stumbled sideways, unfortunately knocking into another girl who dropped her drink, the glass shattering on the ground when she did. Ricki pulled Barbara close to her side, away from the broken glass, gripping her by the waist as she swayed and her legs shook, and that was exactly when a large hand snagged Barbara by the upper arm, jerking them both a step back.

Ricki snapped around to the owner of the hand with grit teeth and hackles up, and only when she saw that it was one of the club's security guards did she force herself to calm down and smooth away her look of ire. Or at least, she did until the man curled his lips up at them both and informed them that, "You and your friend are going to have to leave. We don't allow under-aged drinking here"

For a second, she could only stare up at him, eye wide with disbelief, before she snapped, "Are you kidding me?"

"We don't know who snuck the alcohol in," he continued, "but your friend and everyone else who's become intoxicated have to leave."

"My _friend _didn't drink anything," Ricki growled, stepping close to the guard and glaring up at him. She fought plenty of guys bigger and more powerful than him, so she certainly wasn't going to be intimidated. "_If anything_, someone's spiking the drinks. Maybe if you guys did your jobs better, you'd know that!"

"Look, you can either leave on your own, or I can escort you out" he said, his other hand grabbing her by the elbow and pushing both her and Barbara a step back.

Ricki jerked out of his hold, Batglare in full effect as she pulled Barbara away from him too, hissing, "We'll leave, _alright." _

Jason was gone by this point, having disappeared into the crowd just a few minutes before, but she supposed it didn't really matter, did it? The night was pretty much done with, forcibly drawn to an end, and as the security guard followed them out to make sure they left, standing behind them with crossed arms as they collected their jackets to go, any thoughts of seeing Kory again pretty much fell by the wayside.

"Just be happy that we didn't get the cops involved," the guard said as they exited out onto the streets, and Ricki was sure to pause long enough in her helping an unsteady Barbara get her jacket on to flip the guy off for their troubles.

Barbara flinched at the sound of the club's door slamming shut behind them, a look of distress flooding her eyes as she moaned, "The police? Oh no, my dad– he doesn't... he's gonna be so mad.."

Ricki sighed, "Don't worry about it Barb," she half-heartedly patted the girl on the shoulder, "He said they _weren't _getting the police involved." and as she eyed several other teens that were stumbling about the sidewalk in varying states of intoxication, she figured that that wasn't so much a courtesy to them as it was the club just trying to avoid the possibility of being held liable for underage drinking.

Mouth pressed into a thin line and with Barbara leaning very heavily against her shoulder, Ricki pulled out her cellphone and called up one of Gotham's taxi services, telling them to send a couple of cabs their way. Considering that she seemed to be one of the few people out here who was still sober, she might as well be the responsible one and make sure everyone got home safe.

She had Barbara sit down on the sidewalk because the girl was getting a little bit heavy having to pretty much hold her up for so long, and she wished she could say that that's where the night ended, that from there things wound down and everyone hopped a cab home, but of course nothing was ever that simple. As she stood in wait for the cabs to come, an angry shout drew her attention over to one of the drunken teens, a boy who before had been leaning against the side of the building, the same blond boy who Barbara had been dancing with earlier, except now his face was screwed up in rage at the sight of them, and Ricki had to say that he had a rather impressive-looking bruise blooming over one eye.

"Well look who it is!" he snarled as he stumbled over to them, and Ricki automatically stepped in front of Barbara, her body growing tense. He hardly seemed to notice her though, only having eyes for the redhead sitting on the ground behind her.

"Little Miss Sucker-Punch," he said, words slurring as he stepped within swinging distance of Ricki, which honestly wasn't very smart of him. He leaned sideways to look around her and down at Barbara, snapping, "It's called flirting, bitch. If you weren't interested, you should have just said so."

"Flirting doesn't involve your hand up my shirt," Barbara said, not looking at all threatened by his posturing, and she dragged herself back to her feet, stepping up next to Ricki and draping one arm over her shoulder for stability.

"You were giving me all sorts of signals!" he said, voice getting a high pitch to it as he made a kind of incredulous gesture with his hands.

"Not for you to dive right in and steal second base!" she said, sounding just as incredulous and irate, "I mean, you skipped a lot of steps there! Do you even remember my name?"

"Yeah!" he said, "It's 'Bitch with the mean right-hook.'"

Ricki was quick to grab Barbara's fist before things could escalate. She almost couldn't believe that she was getting involved in such a conversation, even if only in a small way, and she was about to open her mouth and get further involved by telling them to both let it go, and stay on opposite ends of the sidewalk, because they were both clearly shit-faced and not in any position to be making rational decisions at the moment, but before she could, laughter coming from the doorway to the club stopped them.

It was a boy with clown makeup smeared across his face, smile stretched wide in their direction, and behind him were a couple of other teens decked out in the likeness of Gotham's Rogues.

"What, is something funny, _Chuckles?_" the blond boy who been arguing with Barbara snapped, twisting around to face the group.

"By all means, don't stop on my account," the clown boy said with a smirk. "You three are just too cute for words with your fighting."

If the other teens scattered about weren't watching them before, they definitely were now, standing along the sidelines and staring with rapt attention.

"What did I tell you?" the clown boy said, looking back over his shoulder at his friends with a grin, "It'd be hilarious, right? Prime entertainment." he turned his eyes back on them. "Better than anything on tv."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" the boy standing next to them growled.

Ricki's eyes narrowed in suspicion, studying the clown boy's face carefully, his smug, gloating expression, and the secretive smiles being traded among his friends standing behind him. "You," she said, realization striking her, and it honestly wasn't that hard of a guess either, "You were the ones who spiked the drinks, weren't you?"

"_What?_" both Barbara and the blond boy said.

"_Are you fucking kidding me?_" blondie fumed, voice getting high-pitched all over again.

"Hey, I'm not admitting anything," the clown boy said, holding up his hands in an easy-going, unconcerned away. "Not like you can prove it either way."

"I'm sure the security cameras would beg to differ," Ricki said.

_Maybe, _because in the darkness and flashing lights of the dance club, it would likely be hard to make out something as subtle as someone slipping something into people's drinks, and from the look on this Joker-esc wannabe's face, it seemed he knew that as well.

"Yeah, good luck with that," he said, all too self-assured.

"I have scholarships I'm relying on, _shit-head,_" blondie said, "I can't be caught up in this crap right now."

"Oh, relax, Drama Queen," the clown boy rolled his eyes. "You'll be fine in the morning. And hey," he chuckled, "maybe this will loosen up whatever stick you seem to have up your ass."

"You think this is funny? How about you come over here and I'll show you just how _funny _this is," blondie ground out.

Apparently not one to be intimidated, and taking the challenge to heart, the boy with the clown makeup walked confidently over to them, all of his friends trailing a short distance behind him, until he was practically chest-to-chest with the blond boy standing next to them, and instinct had Ricki taking a step back, pulling Barbara along with her.

"If you think I'm threatened by you, you're joking," the clown boy said, teeth bared in a grin, "And between the two of us, I'm the only _Joker _here tonight."

Blondie struck out at him, not so much with a hit as he just pushed the guy back with both hands, and clown-boy's response was an immediate uppercut, dropping the blond boy straight to the ground, blood spilling past his lips. As the spectators around them let out both startled and sympathetic cries and the clown-boy lunged forward for a kick, Ricki's mind screamed _threat _ and she was moving before she could even really process what she was doing.

She slipped out from under Barbara's arm, striking the clown-boy in the throat with one quick jab that winded him one second and in the next second had his arm twisted around behind him and was forcing him to his knees, then to his stomach – his head turned sideways with one cheek to the ground. Her senses warned her of several other someones rushing her way, the clown-boy's friends who thought they could take her, clearly picking the wrong night to come to their idiot friend's aid.

Her fist caught the first one to reach her in the gut, and as he was bent over wheezing, she grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him down on top of his clown-dressed friend, springing over him as she did so and meeting the others head-on. It was an easy fight compared to the ones she'd had in the past, and she was careful not to seriously hurt any of them, because stupid or not, they were still just civilians. She didn't even feel like she had to go for her belt, which was still hidden in her jacket.

Two more went down with just two to go, and that was when the stupid heel on one of her shoes broke, momentarily throwing off her balance as she stumbled back. The older, Harley Quinn girl she'd been about to take down saw it as her advantage and charged for her, fingers curled up like claws, and with not too many other options available to her, Ricki figured _'To hell with it' _and kicked off her broken shoe, striking the girl in the head and taking her down.

Which left just one guy.

Who she didn't immediately see.

And her gaze darted all around, when suddenly there was a metallic _bang _from behind her.

Ricki twisted around in place to see the last guy crumpled to the ground at her feet, and standing behind him was Barbara holding the lid to a trashcan in her hands.

"Did I get him?" Barbara asked, looking flustered with long strands of red hair hanging down in her face, her mind sluggishly trying to catch up. She blinked down at the guy, and when it seemed that she registered what she was seeing, she laughed triumphantly, dropping the trashcan lid on the guy for good measure as she said, "Ha, I totally got 'im. How you like them apples, _jerk._"

Ricki's shoulders slumped, the tension bleeding out of her, when a hand suddenly clapped down on one shoulder, and she swung around, striking out, her defenses flaring up too quickly for her to stop herself.

There was a yelp, mostly startled, then a hiss of pain and, "Damn girl, you hit hard."

It was Jason, who was rubbing at his arm with a pinched look on his face, and standing behind him was Kory, who it seemed only had eyes for her.

Which she had to admit still seemed kind of weird to her.

"I am sorry I did not come sooner," he said, green eyes glimmering in the street lights, and then those eyes narrowed at Jason, "My friend got... _distracted _on his way to come inform me of what had happened."

"What?" Jason snapped defensively, "They had only been kicked out. I didn't think anything like _this _was going on. Anyway, I was totally getting somewhere with that girl back inside, and _Miss Ninja _here seems to have handled herself just fine."

Kory's gaze snapped back over to her.

"Are you at all hurt?" he asked, stepping around his dark-haired friend to approach her.

"Yeah, don't mind me back here," Jason said as the taller redhead passed him by, "You know, the one who actually got hit."

As she opened her mouth to respond, to apologize, to tell them that she was fine, she suddenly heard a faint sound coming from up above, one she was all too familiar with, having heard it more often than not out on the battle field – a war cry, _a roar, _and she wasn't the only one to hear it either. Kory's eyes shot up, and for a moment, time slowed down as he rushed past her, a tanned hand pushing her back a step, attempting to shield her.

Then Kory brought his hands up before him and _green _burst into existence, not fire but glowing hot energy that writhed around his palms.

Her eyes went wide.

And that's when Conner leapt down from the sky, pavement cracking under his feet as he landed in front of them.

Time sped up again. Behind her, she could hear startled shrieks and the sound of running footsteps as everyone bolted down the streets. Even the dazed teens she had knocked to the ground just minutes before were racing away, some dragging their less-than-coherent friends along with them, with blondie following a weaving line in their wake – a kind of hysterical chaos she wouldn't be able to control on her own, and she could only hope none of them got themselves hit by a car in their inebriated states, not that Conner or Kory seemed to notice or care.

Teeth bared, Conner eyed Kory up and down, clearly measuring him as some kind of threat and growled, "Step away from her."

"Make me," Kory bit out, those cheerful tones from before gone now and replaced by something much more dangerous.

"Whoa," Ricki said, her mind finally catching up with her, with the situation as a whole, and though it was probably one of the dumbest things she's ever done, she darted around Kory and actually stepped in between them, her footsteps unsteady due to only having one heel on.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa!_" she repeated, arms held out at her sides between them, "_Big _misunderstanding here! Put your guns down boys. No attacking each other!"

She could feel the adrenaline racing through her and the green energy around Kory's hands was making the hair on her arm stand on end. Spinning around with her back to Conner, she held her hands up to Kory, palms out and fingers splayed, about to explain to him that Conner was her _friend – _and yeah, maybe he shouldn't have come down here all 'attacky-like,' but still, _her friend _nonetheless – and at the same time she wanted to explain to Conner that Kory hadn't been trying to hurt her – or whatever the clone seemed to think – that up until now, Kory had been harmless, overly nice even.

But then her back pressed up against Conner's chest and she stopped, all explanations dying in her throat, because it suddenly struck her, the way she had automatically positioned herself. She'd put her back to Conner, pressed up against him, because she knew he wouldn't hurt her even accidentally in the heat of a moment like this, she knew he'd protect her – but with Kory, she'd kept her eyes on him the whole time, hadn't she? And she had her hands up, a defensive maneuver disguised as a placating gesture.

He wasn't just some cheerful tourist, he was someone who could be a real threat, and deep beneath it all, she realized that she didn't trust him, because she didn't really know him at all, did she?

It was almost as if there were stars fading from her eyes, and as she met Kory's green gaze, despite it all, she couldn't help but think, _'Wouldn't that have been perfect?'_

But her mind was coming back down to reality now, and as easy as that would have made things, trade her feelings from one redhead to another, nothing in her life, it would seem, was so cut-and-dry, and as nice as the night had originally been, as nice as it had felt to dance with someone and be so close to them in a non-platonic way, she just didn't... _feel _the same way around him as she did around Wally. She practically tried to _will _it into existence inside of her, asked herself where was that flutter now, when she actually wanted it – and wondered just what the hell was wrong with her when it didn't show up.

'_Good-looking guy standing right in front of me and I still can't get that speedster off my mind..'_

Another thought floated through her head, one that she didn't really want to hear at the moment, that she'd never once felt threatened by Wally, not even when she first met him all those years back.

_'Hopeless,' _she told herself, _'I'm completely hopeless.'_

"Kory, you..." she sighed, "You should go."

The green glow fizzled out immediately, and as it did, her arms flopped down to her sides. He gave her a look that was both confused and a little hurt at the same time, and she felt so frustrated – by everything that was going on in her life, by her emotions that wouldn't work the way she wanted them to – that she just wanted to scream. But she didn't, she kept a look on her face that was confident and stern and _yes, you should really go now. _

Jason tugged at Kory's hand, murmuring something quietly to him as he pulled him along, away from them, and after Kory cast one last look at her from over his shoulder, they left, walking down the street and disappearing around the corner.

She slouched just the slightest bit against Conner, the clone's hands coming to rest on her shoulders as she did, and she couldn't help but feel a little dejected even if the night's conclusion and the way things went were pretty much her doing.

"_Whoa."_

Ricki's gaze snapped to the side.

Barbara.

Relief flooded through her despite the fact that Barbara had seen a whole lot of stuff that she probably shouldn't have, because she was just happy that the older girl hadn't run off into the city like all the others had, intoxicated and wandering around who knows where.

Ricki pulled out her cellphone, stepping away from Conner and dialing a secret number that would connect her to the Batcave, which would connect her to Bruce's comm-link if he was already out in the city.

"I have no idea how much of this is whatever I accidentally drank tonight," Barbara said, holding a hand to her head.

"Don't worry about it, Barb," she absentmindedly told the girl, phone pressed to one ear as she listened to it ring. "I'll get you home and you can sleep it off."

As soon as she heard the _click, _and the rumbling _Hm? _of Bruce's voice when he answered, she quickly explained the situation, rattling off her coordinates and just how many teens she had seen go running off into the night, because she knew he'd take care of it just like he took care of everything else.

"–and _yeah, _I'm not as a friend's house tonight, but I'm guessing you already knew that much, huh?"

He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. She could practically sense his slight smirk over the phone.

She ended the call with a roll of her eyes, and with that all taken care of, she rounded on Conner, hands on her hips.

"Way to be _covert, _by the way. I think you shook the whole block earlier," she said, her tone a little snippy – but then, she felt that she was entitled to be a little snippy after all of that. "What _was _that even?"

Conner frowned, very heavy on the '_dis' _in _gruntled, _"I could hear his heartbeat from the rooftop. He wasn't human."

"_You're one to talk."_

His eyes narrowed, "He was advancing on you, and there were other people lying on the ground around you."

"No, _no,_" she cut him off, index finger held up in the air before her, "Not _advancing_ on me – walking over to see if I was alright. And those people on the ground, _I _put them there."

"And I helped!" Barbara chirped cheerfully from the side.

"Barbara helped."

There was a pause in which Conner looked more confused than anything, until he asked, "Then why did you tell him to leave?"

"_It's–" _the fire burned out inside her, and she sighed, "–complicated."

For a moment he just stared at her, studying her, but then he simply nodded his head, accepted her answer even though he didn't understand it, and she couldn't appreciate the gesture any more than she already did.

"What are you even doing in Gotham anyway?" she asked quietly – not concerned, but just curious. She felt too tired to worry anymore for the night. "Were you watching me or something?"

His earlier comment of watching from up on the roof came to mind.

"Your... _mentor _brought me here," Conner said, "He had me come find you. Wanted to make sure you didn't get into any trouble, I guess."

"I suppose I deserve that," she said, gaze cast to the ground. "I did lie to him about where I was going tonight."

"I promise I wasn't spying on you," Conner said. "I only just got here. Gotham's... easy to get lost in."

Her lips quirked up at that, and she shook her head, looking up to meet his eyes, "It's alright, Kon. I'm not mad at you or anything."

"He also," Conner continued hesitantly, "_Knows _that I know about... you."

She couldn't even find the energy in herself to feel embarrassed when he gestured at her chest, like the topic he was discretely trying to talk about needed that extra bit of info for her to understand what he meant.

"Oh," was all she could think so say.

A pause.

"Was he mad?"

"No," Conner said. "Just... protective."

She hugged her arms around herself.

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

She felt a teeny-tiny bit of relief regardless.

A smile crept up on her face.

One of the cabs pulled up shortly after.

"I'm going to make sure she gets home alright," Ricki said, eyes on Barbara who had taken to playing with the zipper of her jacket. "You should probably head back to base. Think you can find the tubes from here?"

"Yeah, I have a better idea of where I am now," Conner said, gaze cast upward and about at the buildings towering about them. He seemed unconcerned.

She was half tempted to just drag him along with her, but then, Commissioner Gordon was already going to be distressed enough when he saw the state that Barbara was in, adding in some teenaged boy that he didn't know showing up along with her would likely only make things worse.

Instead, she settled for telling him to "Call me later to let me know you got home safe," even if it was a total _mothering _thing to say.

"Likewise," he said, looking moderately amused.

And then he vanished down an alley where he could jump away without being seen and she herded Barbara into the taxi cab, collecting her broken shoe off the ground along the way as she did, and later taking the other one off once they were both in the backseat of the cab.

She let Barbara slurringly tell the driver her address first – it'd be suspicious if the older girl knew that she knew it after all – and then when Barbara was distracted, Ricki quietly whispered to the driver the _correct_ address, as Barbara had gotten the street name wrong. They fell into a silence after that, a silence that lasted several blocks with Barbara watching her through half-lidded eyes, slumped in her seat with her head tilted sideways.

"What?" Ricki eventually asked.

"Nothing..."

Ricki looked away from her, focusing on the buildings passing by outside, trying not to think of, well, _anything, _really. Like, one night away from her thoughts. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

And Barbara was _still _looking at her. Ricki could practically feel the girl's eyes burning a hole in the back of her neck. She fidgeted in her seat, and several more blocks went by before she turned back to the girl, a mental growl rumbling in her head.

"_What?_" she asked again.

Barbara gave her a considering look, mouth pressed into a thin line, and then without any kind of real warning, she leaned over and kissed Ricki.

Right on the lips.

It wasn't at all deep or passionate, but it wasn't so much a brief peck either, just... the press of Barbara's lips on her own... soft..

Ricki's brain fizzled out, and she didn't really respond in any way either, just... was frozen the entire four seconds it lasted.

Barbara pulled away with a curious hum, slumping back down in her seat as she said, "Maybe that was just the alcohol or whatever talking, but you kinda looked like you needed that."

Ricki honestly didn't know _what_ she needed at this point.

"Uh.. _huh_," she said slowly, unsurely.

It didn't strike her until later that that was her first kiss.

She really shouldn't have been that surprised that it was with a girl.

.

* * *

.

By the time she had gotten Barbara home and explained the situation to her dad, and assured him that _no, _she didn't need a ride home, and _no, _she didn't need him to call anyone for her, it was well past midnight as she exited the Gordon residence – very nearly one in the morning even as she made her way down the street, her feet bare and her shoes held loosely in one hand. She estimated that it only took about five minutes before the Batmobile pulled up next to her, the passenger-side door sliding open.

She didn't even begin to wonder how he knew right where she was, because he was Bruce and he always knew – that, and she'd bet her money that there was some form of a tracker in her belt.

Casting a quick look around herself for prying eyes, of which there were none – _Batman _never made mistakes like that, after all – she quickly slipped into the sleek black vehicle, the door sliding shut behind her, and she buckled herself in just before they took off down the street.

"How was your night?" he asked.

She thought of Kory, his strange way of talking and his weird glowing powers. She thought of Jason, and Barbara, and that poor blond kid who'd made the mistake of copping a feel. She thought about the music she had danced to, and those jerks she had taken down, the drugs or alcohol or _whatever _they had brought to the club, and she purposely _didn't _think about the kiss she had gotten in the cab.

And she thought about Wally, who hadn't even been there.

_'Duckers Sidewinder and Zitka Windseeker coming to you live from Cool Hits 102.'_

She mentally shook her head.

"It was fine," she told him. "How 'bout you?"

"Helped the police round up some hysterical and inebriated teens," he said. "Uneventful."

She hummed in response, a comfortable silence falling over them, streetlights zipping by overhead as they coasted through the streets of Gotham, on their way back to the Cave.

"You wanna know something really weird?" she didn't even need to look his way to know that she had his attention. "There's like this.. _Batman verses Gotham Rogues_ rave-dance theme at that club I went to, probably others too."

A pause.

"That's a new one," he rumbled.

.

* * *

_That's all for chapter five! Hope you guys enjoyed it, and apologies for any spelling errors I may have missed. _

_For anyone who's interested, I recently made myself a Tumblr account. There's a link to it on my profile page here, or you could just type in the link below (remove the spaces):_

_______deranged-black-kitten. tumblr .com____  
_

_So anyway, there were a couple canon characters making cameo appearances in this chapter. Jason Todd, a rule 63 Koriand'r (or Starfire), and of course, Barbara Gordon. Hopefully I got their personalities alright (I only really know Starfire from Teen Titans, so that's the version I based Kory after), and hopefully none of you minded too much. _

_As always, reviews are love and make the writing world go 'round, so let me know what you think. :)_


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